"Here the charm is deep, the splendour unlaboured; the colours of history, reckoned afresh, saturate singular people, in whom passion is lucid again.here is one who collects his extraordinary resources, and strides."--Christopher Middleton In the game of bocce, no matter how intensely you study the world's surface, there is always a chance an unseen pebble will knock your ball in an unexpected direction. In these essays, poet, antiquarian bookseller, and celebrated travel writer Marius Kociejowski chronicles serendipitous encounters with authors, manuscripts, and eccentrics, in which "the curious workings of fate" and "art's unbidden swerve" intervene to shift the course of fortune. Carried by keen wit, aphoristic prose, and a rich sense of characterization, and featuring chance meetings and comic misadventures with such figures as Bruce Chatwin, Zbigniew Herbert, and Javier Marias, "The Pebble Chance" is a sumptuous offering of belles lettres exploring the incandescent moments when skill and providence collide. "It is a testament to the power of this superb book that I felt not despondency, but . elation."--Adam Thorpe, "The Times Literary Supplement" "Treasures are revealed .

with a formidable erudition, and at their best they gleam with an enameled splendour."--Ken Babstock, "The Globe and Mail" "Kociejowski writes beautifully . unusual, poetic, and thought-provoking."--"Library Journal".