Meh. This could have easily been an article or article series, rather than a full book. The author is a journalist by trade and you can tell by the writing style of this book. It's not bad, but it doesn't have the flow and feel of a typical non-fiction book.

The subject matter isn't in my particular wheel-house. I don't collect anything, let alone stamps and I have no desire to do so. Mostly because if I did, I would go OCD on it to the exclusion of all else, including a life. Knowing how I can obsess, I have chosen to avoid that particular path. Which is why I wanted to read this book. It is about the most rare stamp in the world and how it went from owner to owner. I had never heard about this stamp before, nor did I know anything about stamp collecting as such. I was hoping to learn something about both topics.

I feel that I did, but it wasn't a riveting or enthralling read for me. Not sure what didn't work, though if I had to say something, I would say the voice of the book just irked me slightly. Not enough to not want to read the book, but enough to not fully enjoy it.

Obviously, this is completely subjective and how I experienced this book. There was nothing glaringly wrong with it and it was full of information, some of which I shared with others as I came upon those tidbits. It just left me rather blah when I finished it.

I highly suspect this would resonate with those who are stamp collectors, or collectors in general. Also, one of the owners of the stamp was DuPont, who went to prison for murder, so this might appeal somewhat to true crime fans who would like to add some information about DuPont to what they know. Not a bad book and I don't regret reading it. I did learn from it, so that is a positive to me.

3, it didn't do much for me, but it might work very well for you, stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

Absolutely riveting! You do not need to be a stamp collector to be sucked into the history of this one-of-a-kind stamp. Along the way you'll meet a wide rage of characters who either owned or wanted to own this rarity. You'll travel to London to the Royal Philatelic Society as well as meet collectors and experts from around the world as a timeline of ownership takes place.

This book will appeal to fans of The Billionaire's Vinegar as well as anyone who has dreamt buying something at a flea market or garage sale and discovering it is a priceless gem.

This does almost what I wanted of this book – a fun and enjoyable non-fiction read about a subject I'd never have expected to enjoy. Yes, the topic is a superlative in that it is consistently deemed the most valuable stamp in history, and sells for stupid money as a one-of-a-kind item to be stored and possessed, if not enjoyed, but it is a piddly little thing of no real aesthetic merit, from a place you'd never expect to have any connection with, and hence not the most glamorous of topics. But this feels its way into the scientific proof of it being genuine, and around all the owners and sellers the author could provide biographies for, so lo and behold you have a full book that really can fascinate. If only it wasn't quite so scattershot in chronology and so on, for it lacked a little bit of authority to make it read as definitive. It is, still, however, very pleasurable – four and a half stars.

For me, a non-philatelist, the most interesting parts of this book were those that gave a wider view of what the author calls "Stamp World." He touches on some of the questions that I found most intriguing, namely: why do people love collecting stamps? Who are some famous philatelists from history? And what are some other examples of rare and unique stamps? Certainly I think any overview of philately would merit a chapter on the one-cent magenta, but I don't know that an entire book is needed. The only particularly interesting parts of that stamp's history are quite brief, in my opinion: the (possibly fabricated) story about an owner who burned a second one-cent magenta so that there would only be one (and thus preserve its great value), and the bizarre behavior and eventual criminal act of owner du Pont. The rest is marginalia that I've already more or less forgotten; a true philatelist may find it intriguing, but for me as a lay reader it was not particularly.

A small side note with potential spoilers for The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: I wonder if author Alan Bradley was inspired by the tale of owner Hind burning the (alleged) second one-cent magenta with his cigar, as a very similar episode (actually almost identical, if I recall correctly?) occurs in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Obviously it was not an allusion I picked up on when I read that book, as I'd never heard the story before, but in retrospect I'm sure it was deliberate. I do love discovering connections like that when I read!

Overall, a well-written and well-researched read, but I would've enjoyed a broader overview rather than such a narrow focus on one particular stamp. The ARC I received was a Kindle file that did not include any photos, but perhaps the print book will contain some? I had to go to Google to even find out what the stamp in question looks like, and there are several others that are mentioned throughout the book that I would've loved to have a visual reference for.

Recommended for philatelists, but maybe not for the general reader.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC. This is my honest review.

What is it about a not-very-pretty-looking piece of paper not even an inch in size that could make it worth almost $9.5 million? I know very little about the hobby or business of stamp collecting, but even I recognize some of the names who have played a role in the history of The One-Cent Magenta. The book by journalist James Barron tells the journey of this stamp and the story of each of its owners in a light, easy to read narrative, that is almost gossipy in tone.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2017/03/the-one-cent-magenta.html

Reviewed for NetGalley

Not everyone's cup of tea, I am sure, but I really enjoyed it. I collect stamps so I found this story very interesting.