The Error World - 9780571235261

Like many boys of his era, Simon Garfield built a stamp collection the old-fashioned way: by steaming off the corners of envelopes. These days it is big business on the internet, far beyond the pocket of the ordinary collector. The Error Worldtells the funny, absurd and poignant story of an obsessive hobby and the colourful tales of the men who pursue it. But at the heart of the tale is the author's own quest to complete a collection of rare British stamps that have something dramatically wrong with them - missing heads, missing colours, missing numbers - as he wonders whether there is something missing in his own life to be so concerned with a desire his friends and family can't understand.