Buy New

Quantity:

Buy Used

Used - Good See details

Price: �2.78

Fulfilled by Amazon

More Buying Choices

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Sorry, this item is not available in

Image not available for
Colour:

Image not available

Share your own customer images

Search inside this book

Tell the Publisher!
I�d like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

The Collector Collector [Paperback]

Tibor Fischer (Author)

4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

RRP:	�8.99
Price:	�6.74 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
Deal Price:
You Save:	�2.25 (25%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Only 3 left in stock (more on the way).
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon. Gift-wrap available.

Want it Friday, 21 June? Choose Express delivery at checkout. Details

	Amazon Price	New from	Used from
Hardcover	--	--	--
Show # more hardcovers
Show fewer hardcovers
Paperback	�6.74	--	--
Show # more paperbacks
Show fewer paperbacks

Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Certificate, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more.

› See more product promotions

Book Description

Publication Date: 5 Mar 1998

To a small flat in South London comes a Sumerian bowl: but the bowl is the Collector Collector, clay with something to say, an object d'art who will offer Rosa, its owner, vast swathes of unrecorded history from the last 5, 000 years. Meanwhile, Rosa tries to centre her life and settle the disturbances caused by an uninvited guest, Nikki.

1001 Nights meets the inner city, The Collector Collector is a comic masterpiece and unquestionably the finest novel ever narrated by a bowl.

(19970728)

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; }

1001 Nights meets the inner city, The Collector Collector is a comic masterpiece and unquestionably the finest novel ever narrated by a bowl.

(19970728)

Frequently Bought Together

Price For All Three: �20.22

Show availability and delivery details

Buy the selected items together

This item: The Collector Collector by Tibor Fischer Paperback �6.74
The Thought Gang by Tibor Fischer Paperback �6.74
Under The Frog by Tibor Fischer Paperback �6.74

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

The Thought Gang
› Tibor Fischer

4.4 out of 5 stars (27)

Paperback

�6.74
Under The Frog
› Tibor Fischer

4.7 out of 5 stars (24)

Paperback

�6.74
Don't Read This Book If You're Stupid
› Tibor Fischer

3.0 out of 5 stars (21)

Paperback

�6.74
Good to be God
› Tibor Fischer

3.1 out of 5 stars (14)

Paperback

�5.99
Crushed Mexican Spiders (Possibly Forty Ships)
› Tibor Fischer

3.7 out of 5 stars (6)

Hardcover

�5.99
Voyage To The End Of The Room
› Tibor Fischer

3.1 out of 5 stars (17)

Paperback

�5.24

Product details

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Vintage; New Ed edition (5 Mar 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0099268191
ISBN-13: 978-0099268192
Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1.4 x 20.1 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 345,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Tibor Fischer Page

Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

Product Description

Review

"Fischer's impatience and daring pay off. 'I promise you will want to read it more than once,' said Victoria Glendinning, and I've read it three times now, and not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Which is itself out of the ordinary." (Nicholas Lezard Guardian )

"Stranger books have seldom been written, and when they have, they've seldom been this fast-paced, this funny, or this effortlessly readable" (Detroit Free Press )

"The freshest, most fascinating novel I've read in years" (Tom Robbins )

"A work of rare enchantment which could charm a smile out of a stone" (Sunday Telegraph )

"So good I promise you will want to read it more than once" (Daily Telegraph )

Book Description

'A work of rare enchantment which could charm a smile out of a stone' Sunday Telegraph

See all Product Description

Inside This Book (Learn More)

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?

Good to be God by Tibor Fischer Paperback
3.1 out of 5 stars (14)

�5.99

Crushed Mexican Spiders (Possibly Forty Ships) by Tibor Fischer Hardcover
3.7 out of 5 stars (6)

�5.99

The Thought Gang by Tibor Fischer Paperback
4.4 out of 5 stars (27)

�6.74

Under The Frog by Tibor Fischer Paperback
4.7 out of 5 stars (24)

�6.74

› Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

4.6 out of 5 stars

8 reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars

Write a customer review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Endlessly inventive and entertaining 18 Feb 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This is a novel written from the point of view of an antique bowl that "collects" (or, more accurately, catalogues) the people that collect it - hence the title. From this fanciful "fly on the wall" perspective, Tibor Fischer constructs an endlessly inventive and entertaining tale. In the main narrative people that appear normal later turn out to be deranged in a variety of interesting ways, and those that initially appear to be bizarre turn out to be behaving quite rationally. As if the interplay of characters in the present day were not enough stimulation, the book is liberally spiced with flashbacks into fantastical highlights from the bowl's observations over the previous 4000 years. The only flaw (if it is one) is the bowl's tendency to assign everything to ranked lists (e.g. "I equivocated about whether to place her at 133 or 132 on my list of people-readers"). This is initially amusing, then irritating, and finally ignorable. Overall, highly recommended.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't judge a book by its cover (or its synopsis) 6 May 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This book looks pretty uninteresting, and the synopsis reads very strangely indeed. A book narrated by an antique bowl is not one I would normally think of reading. Suspending my disbelief however was very rewarding.

An inanimate object makes an excellent narrator because, as the bowl itself observes, people don't notice it and act in ways in which they wouldn't in company. Also, the bowl is full of interesting and amusing anecdotes about the things it has seen in its long and varied 'life' which take over the narrative at times and stop monotony setting in.

The bowl, besides being a raconteur, is a philosopher and something of a magician. There are plenty of ceramic observations on the human condition here!

I'm sure this still sounds far too strange a book to consider reading, but it's definitely worth a go. The plot which revolves around the bowl's latest owner, her 'flatmate', a butch guardian angel and an obese tycoon is entertaining in itself.

A must for antique dealers and anyone from Market Harborough.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely brilliant! 28 Nov 2010

By carly holmes

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this book because I was researching the literary device of employing non-human narration, for my PhD. I loved it. Quirky, funny, and ultimately engaging, which I didn't think anything narrated from the view point of a bowl could be! The characters were all great - weird and memorable, and the writing was wonderful. I'll definitely be buying more of Tibor Fischer's books.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

4.0 out of 5 stars Wolverhampton Libraries LGBT Reading Group Review 27 Mar 2008

By Ms. R. Graham

Format:Paperback

As people tend not to suspect that their ornaments might be watching, they will do all sorts of things right in front of them... this is the extraordinary premise on which this story begins. This ancient Sumerian bowl is an observant narrator with metamorphic powers and an irrepressible ability to catalogue absolutely everything about everyone he (is the bowl a he?) has ever met or been owned by over many, many years.

The bowl's present owner is the lonely Rosa who allows her friend, the calculating Nikki, to stay at hers for a while. The ensuing story of theft, prostitution, an obese angel, a kidnapped agony-aunt, more theft and several assassins is intertwined with historical tales from the bowl's vast back-catalogue, as well as a bit of mischievous shape-shifting.

Although a couple of readers felt that Fischer simply invented words to suit his purpose (you might need a dictionary at hand!), different types of effective word-play reoccur throughout the book. Despite this title not officially having an LGBT theme, there are a couple of unanticipated moments that can be counted! This was a very unusual book and, although it might take a few chapters to get into, is well worth a go.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Unlike anything I've ever read. 25 Jan 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Authors often struggle to write from anything other than their own viewpoint - men rarely write well about female characters, Europeans struggle with African ideas and so on. To write in the character of another species is heroic (any offers?) but to become inanimate yet sentient is the sign of a certifiable loon. But what a loon! At least the pseuds can't accuse you of being "inauthentic". Free from the strictures of existing, the bowl treats us to a feast of sublime observations. You will be left in no doubt of man's peripheral place in the world after this. A winner for the existentialists and misanthropists alike.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Judge a Book by its Blurb 12 Mar 2008

By Tim Danaher

Format:Paperback

Tibor Fischer's "Under the Frog" is my favourite book of all time...so when I picked this up and read the blurb, I though "He is *never*, in a million years, going to be able to pull this one off." But he does. Brilliant, witty and laugh-til-you-cry funny.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, funny, but a guilty pleasure 19 Oct 2009

By Jezza

Format:Paperback

I enjoyed this but can't help thinking that there's some stuff here that I am not necessarily proud of enjoying.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Unbelievable author 5 Jun 2005

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This author has written many fabulous books, each equally as brilliant as the next and this one is no exception. Buy it!

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

› See all 8 customer reviews (newest first) on Amazon.co.uk

Write a customer review

Would you like to see more reviews about this item?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 26 reviews 4.0 out of 5 stars

Were these reviews helpful? Let us know

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }

Customer Discussions

This product's forum

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight

Start a new discussion

Topic:

First post:

Receive e-mail when new posts are made

Prompts for sign-in

Guidelines

Active discussions in related forums

Discussion	Replies	Latest Post
fiction discussion forum Self-published books: pain or gain?	6127	52 minutes ago
fiction discussion forum Come on - why don't we write our own book right here in the fiction forum ? I'll do the first sentence, and then jump in....hold on, here we go...	7216	5 hours ago
fiction discussion forum Nobody reads on the loo do they ? not really - and yet so many people have books in the loo !	19	8 hours ago
fiction discussion forum Spend an erotic night of BDSM, Domination/submission, and exhibition with Jim and Kay this weekend..	47	9 hours ago
fiction discussion forum What is the POINT of zombie novels, exactly?	135	9 hours ago
fiction discussion forum Can anyone recommend a good book	108	9 hours ago
fiction discussion forum Novels set in or about pubs?	11	15 hours ago
fiction discussion forum Fed up with all the books not having an Ending?	34	23 hours ago