Edmond Charlot opened a small bookshop, publishing company, and lending library in Algiers in 1935. He was twenty years old. He called his new bookshop Les Vraies Richesses (Our True Wealth), after a book by Jean Giono. Charlot published the early work of his friend Albert Camus, but his contribution to the world of books goes far beyond that happy piece of talent spotting. Putting literature into the hands of readers was the driving passion of his life, a passion that drove him into occasional conflict with governments and occupying powers and more than occasional financial hardship. His courage and single-mindedness were extraordinary and reminded me of the personal sacrifices publishers and booksellers still make every day in conditions hostile to free thought and expression.

Kaouther Adimi has written a sweet, elegiac book about this remarkable man. Part history and part biography, Our Riches is more than anything a meditation on books and what it means to love reading, publishing, and selling them.