Georges Borchardt
She was wrong, but it took some time. Georges sold the rights to Elie Wiesel’s “Night” for $250, conditional on finding a British publisher to share translation costs. Its first print run, just 3,000 copies, took three years to sell. By 2018 it was selling that many copies each week. Wiesel won his Nobel, for peace, in 1986.
What seems interesting about Georges is the ability to be such a master of taste in picking books that have something new to say and will resonate. A skill that has its best prerequisite in loving the action of the thing but also being observant of the culture that surrounds you.
When they made their way back to Paris, they found the apartment empty. Georges’s stamp collection was gone, as were his books—his beloved books. For Christmas, he used to ask his parents either for a new book, or to have a favourite one bound. He loved selecting the end papers and leather binding, loved books not just for their content, but as objets d’art. At school he excelled at memorising and reciting scenes from Racine and Molière; on his own, he devoured Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper, Proust and Gide. Various people had lived in the apartment, and in wartime unattended objects have a way of wandering off. Paper was scarce; books were valuable.
Charlie Munger
Charlie Munger CNN Business Clips
Jean Widmer
