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The Collector Collector (Paperback)

by Tibor Fischer (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
Price: £5.98 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Frequently Bought Together

The Collector Collector + The Thought Gang + Good to be God
Price For All Three: £17.36

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  • This item: The Collector Collector by Tibor Fischer

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Product details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (5 Mar 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099268191
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099268192
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 24,809 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #2 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > F > Fischer, Tibor

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Product Description

Product Description

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 5000 years.


About the Author

Tibor Fischer was born in Stockport in 1959 of Hungarian parents. Brought up in South London he was educated at Cambridge and worked as a journalist. He was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his first novel, Under the Frog, which also won the Betty Trask Award, and he was nominated as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists.

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Collector Collector
63% buy the item featured on this page:
The Collector Collector 4.6 out of 5 stars (7)
£5.98
The Thought Gang
14% buy
The Thought Gang 4.3 out of 5 stars (18)
£6.39
Good to be God
11% buy
Good to be God 3.4 out of 5 stars (10)
£4.99
Under the Frog
8% buy
Under the Frog 4.6 out of 5 stars (17)
£4.99
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Customer Reviews

7 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
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
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.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Endlessly inventive and entertaining, 18 Feb 1999
By A Customer
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.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Unlike anything I've ever read., 25 Jan 2000
By A Customer
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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, funny, but a guilty pleasure
I enjoyed this but can't help thinking that there's some stuff here that I am not necessarily proud of enjoying.
Published 20 days ago by Jezza

4.0 out of 5 stars Wolverhampton Libraries LGBT Reading Group Review
As people tend not to suspect that their ornaments might be watching, they will do all sorts of things right in front of them... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Ms. R. Graham

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Judge a Book by its Blurb
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... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Tim Danaher

5.0 out of 5 stars Unbelievable author
This author has written many fabulous books, each equally as brilliant as the next and this one is no exception. Buy it!
Published on 5 Jun 2005

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