''The Book of the Book'' is a book by

Idries Shah Idries Shah (; hi, इदरीस शाह, ps, ادريس شاه, ur, ; 16 June 1924 – 23 November 1996), also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el- Hashimi (Arabic: سيد إدريس هاشمي) and by the pen name Arko ...

. The majority of the book's 200 pages are blank, with the remaining nine pages telling the story of a book left by a wise man consisting of one sentence and attempts over hundreds of years to discern the intended meaning.

Lawrence Paul Elwell-Sutton Laurence Paul Elwell-Sutton (1912–1984) was a British scholar of Persian culture and Islamic studies. He was professor emeritus at the University of Edinburgh, where he held a chair in the school's department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studi ...

writing for ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'' said, "I suppose his admirers among the Hampstead intelligentsia will have swallowed this buffoonery with the same enthusiasm with which they have gulped down the rest."

Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing (; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British-Zimbabwean novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remain ...

responded to Elwell-Sutton's remarks, in the ''New York Review of Books'', stating "Ignorance, I will admit, is no crime, and I am sure that Dr. Elwell-Sutton does not claim to be a literary man. But motivation has its mysteries." A review in ''

Studies in Comparative Religion ''Studies in Comparative Religion'' was a quarterly academic journal published from 1963 to 1987 that contained essays on the spiritual practices and religious symbolism of the world's religions. The journal was notable for the number of prominent ...

'' stated "The Book of the Book, which purports to be an object lesson in the problem of the container and the content, consists of some fifteen pages of print bound together with over 250 blank pages".

References

External links

The Idries Shah FoundationFree Online Read
{{DEFAULTSORT:Book of the Book, The Sufi literature Books by Idries Shah 1969 books Jonathan Cape books