Cirrus@Austlit

'There are plenty of people claiming to be book nerds these days. On Instagram, for example, there are more than three million images under the #booknerd hashtag, most of them cutesy scenes of paperbacks arranged around vintage teacups or stacked in piles and photographed with snoozing cats. In The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders, Melbourne book trade historian Stuart Kells storms on to this embarrassing scene, shattering the pretenders’ non-prescription spectacles and toppling pretentious book stacks on sight. Here, kids, is what a real book nerd looks like.' (Introduction)