R.I.P. - The "greatest reader alive"

At the Strand, Mr. Britton told well-known customers (and everyone else) what they ought to be reading. It helped that he had an encyclopedic memory and always seemed to know what pile a sought-after book was in, even if it was on the bottom.

Mr. Britton could be charming, persuading authors to sketch self-portraits or recounting a night at Studio 54 with Margaret Trudeau. But he could also be irascible and sharply opinionated, and he could sound supremely self-confident.

“There is no doubt in my mind that I am the greatest reader alive,” he once declared, “at least in fiction.”