As a librarian and book lover, I have a sentimental spot on my bookshelves for books-about-books. I love reading books about what other people are reading. As I was unpacking my books after moving, I smiled as I uncovered the box which contained all my biblio-related titles.
This month's Variations on a Theme is all about books-about-books. May these titles make you smile. (All summaries are from Barnes and Noble; I've included my reviews of the books I've read.)
Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books
Maureen Corrigan
“It’s not that I don’t like people,” writes Maureen Corrigan in her introduction to Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading. “It’s just that there always comes a moment when I’m in the company of others—even my nearest and dearest—when I’d rather be reading a book.” In this delightful memoir, Corrigan reveals which books and authors have shaped her own life—from classic works of English literature to hard-boiled detective novels, and everything in between. And in her explorations of the heroes and heroines throughout literary history, Corrigan’s love for a good story shines.
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
Anne Fadiman
This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's 22-volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castles") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proof-reading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading out loud. There is even a foray into pure literary gluttony--Charles Lamb liked buttered muffin crumbs between the leaves, and Fadiman knows of more than one reader who literally consumes page corners. [My review]
Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books
Leah Price (ed.)
As words and stories are increasingly disseminated through digital means, the significance of the book as object—whether pristine collectible or battered relic—is growing as well. Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books spotlights the personal libraries of thirteen favorite novelists who share their collections with readers. Stunning photographs provide full views of the libraries and close-ups of individual volumes: first editions, worn textbooks, pristine hardcovers, and childhood companions. In her introduction, Leah Price muses on the history and future of the bookshelf, asking what books can tell us about their owners and what readers can tell us about their collections. Supplementing the photographs are Price's interviews with each author, which probe the relation of writing to reading, collecting, and arranging books. Each writer provides a list of top ten favorite titles, offering unique personal histories along with suggestions for every bibliophile. [My Review]
The Smithsonian Book of Books
Michael Olmert
Through glorious illustrations from library collections around the globe, you'll discover a wealth of book lore in these pages, and gain a new appreciation for the role of books in human society, from our earliest attempts at writing and recording information to the newest electronic books; from sumptuous illuminated and bejeweled medieval manuscripts to Gutenberg and the invention of movable type; from the diverse arts and crafts of bookmaking to the building of magnificent libraries for housing treasured volumes; from the ancient epic of Gilgamesh to the plays of Shakespeare and the tales of Beatrix Potter; and from the earliest illustrated books to revolutionary science texts. Breathtakingly illustrated throughout with 284 color and 99 b/w illustrations. [My review]
A History of Reading
Alberto Manguel
Writer, translator, and editor Manguel has produced a personal and original book on reading. In 22 chapters, we find out such things as how scientists, beginning in ancient Greece, explain reading; how Walt Whitman viewed reading; how Princess Enheduanna, around 2300 B.C., was one of the few women in Mesopotamia to read and write; and how Manguel read to Jorge Luis Borges when he became blind. Manguel selects whatever subject piques his interest, jumping backward and forward in time and place. Readers might be wary of such a miscellaneous, erudite book, but it manages to be invariably interesting, intriguing, and entertaining. Over 140 illustrations show, among other things, anatomical drawings from 11th-century Egypt, painting of readers, cathedral sculptures, and stone tables of Sumerian students. [My Review]
So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading
Sara Nelson
In early 2002, Sara Nelson - editor, reporter, reviewer, mother, daughter, wife, and compulsive reader - set out to chronicle a year's worth of reading, to explore how the world of books and words intermingled with children, marriage, friends, and the rest of the "real" world. She had a system all set up: fifty-two weeks, fifty-two books...and it all fell apart the first week. That's when she discovered that the books chose her as much as she chose them, and the rewards and frustrations they brought were nothing she could plan for: "In reading, as in life, even if you know what you're doing, you really kind of don't." From Solzhenitsyn to Laura Zigman, Catherine M. to Captain Underpants, this is the captivating result. It is a personal journey filled with wit, charm, insight, infectious enthusiasm - and observations on everything from Public Books (the ones we pretend we're reading), lending trauma, and the idiosyncrasies of sex scenes ("The mingling of bodies and emotions and fluids is one thing. But reading about it: now, that's personal"), to revenge books, hype, the stresses of recommendation (what does it mean when someone you like hates the book you love?), the odd reasons we pick up a book in the first place, and how to put it down if we don't like it ("The literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: Today I am an adult"). [My review]
Other Books-About-Books Titles
The Book on the Bookshelf - Henry Petroski
A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books - Nicholas Basbanes
How to Read and Why - Harold Bloom
Library: An Unquiet History - Matthew Battles
On Rereading - Patricia Meyer Spacks
The Pleasures of Reading in the Age of Distraction - Alan Jacobs
A Reader on Reading - Alberto Manguel
Reading Matters: Five Centuries of Discovering Books - Margaret Willes
Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World - Nicholas Basbanes
Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World - Lawrence Goldstone et al.
This month's Variations on a Theme is all about books-about-books. May these titles make you smile. (All summaries are from Barnes and Noble; I've included my reviews of the books I've read.)
Maureen Corrigan
“It’s not that I don’t like people,” writes Maureen Corrigan in her introduction to Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading. “It’s just that there always comes a moment when I’m in the company of others—even my nearest and dearest—when I’d rather be reading a book.” In this delightful memoir, Corrigan reveals which books and authors have shaped her own life—from classic works of English literature to hard-boiled detective novels, and everything in between. And in her explorations of the heroes and heroines throughout literary history, Corrigan’s love for a good story shines.
Anne Fadiman
This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's 22-volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castles") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proof-reading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading out loud. There is even a foray into pure literary gluttony--Charles Lamb liked buttered muffin crumbs between the leaves, and Fadiman knows of more than one reader who literally consumes page corners. [My review]
Leah Price (ed.)
As words and stories are increasingly disseminated through digital means, the significance of the book as object—whether pristine collectible or battered relic—is growing as well. Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books spotlights the personal libraries of thirteen favorite novelists who share their collections with readers. Stunning photographs provide full views of the libraries and close-ups of individual volumes: first editions, worn textbooks, pristine hardcovers, and childhood companions. In her introduction, Leah Price muses on the history and future of the bookshelf, asking what books can tell us about their owners and what readers can tell us about their collections. Supplementing the photographs are Price's interviews with each author, which probe the relation of writing to reading, collecting, and arranging books. Each writer provides a list of top ten favorite titles, offering unique personal histories along with suggestions for every bibliophile. [My Review]
Michael Olmert
Through glorious illustrations from library collections around the globe, you'll discover a wealth of book lore in these pages, and gain a new appreciation for the role of books in human society, from our earliest attempts at writing and recording information to the newest electronic books; from sumptuous illuminated and bejeweled medieval manuscripts to Gutenberg and the invention of movable type; from the diverse arts and crafts of bookmaking to the building of magnificent libraries for housing treasured volumes; from the ancient epic of Gilgamesh to the plays of Shakespeare and the tales of Beatrix Potter; and from the earliest illustrated books to revolutionary science texts. Breathtakingly illustrated throughout with 284 color and 99 b/w illustrations. [My review]
Alberto Manguel
Writer, translator, and editor Manguel has produced a personal and original book on reading. In 22 chapters, we find out such things as how scientists, beginning in ancient Greece, explain reading; how Walt Whitman viewed reading; how Princess Enheduanna, around 2300 B.C., was one of the few women in Mesopotamia to read and write; and how Manguel read to Jorge Luis Borges when he became blind. Manguel selects whatever subject piques his interest, jumping backward and forward in time and place. Readers might be wary of such a miscellaneous, erudite book, but it manages to be invariably interesting, intriguing, and entertaining. Over 140 illustrations show, among other things, anatomical drawings from 11th-century Egypt, painting of readers, cathedral sculptures, and stone tables of Sumerian students. [My Review]
Sara Nelson
In early 2002, Sara Nelson - editor, reporter, reviewer, mother, daughter, wife, and compulsive reader - set out to chronicle a year's worth of reading, to explore how the world of books and words intermingled with children, marriage, friends, and the rest of the "real" world. She had a system all set up: fifty-two weeks, fifty-two books...and it all fell apart the first week. That's when she discovered that the books chose her as much as she chose them, and the rewards and frustrations they brought were nothing she could plan for: "In reading, as in life, even if you know what you're doing, you really kind of don't." From Solzhenitsyn to Laura Zigman, Catherine M. to Captain Underpants, this is the captivating result. It is a personal journey filled with wit, charm, insight, infectious enthusiasm - and observations on everything from Public Books (the ones we pretend we're reading), lending trauma, and the idiosyncrasies of sex scenes ("The mingling of bodies and emotions and fluids is one thing. But reading about it: now, that's personal"), to revenge books, hype, the stresses of recommendation (what does it mean when someone you like hates the book you love?), the odd reasons we pick up a book in the first place, and how to put it down if we don't like it ("The literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: Today I am an adult"). [My review]
Other Books-About-Books Titles
The Book on the Bookshelf - Henry Petroski
A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books - Nicholas Basbanes
How to Read and Why - Harold Bloom
Library: An Unquiet History - Matthew Battles
On Rereading - Patricia Meyer Spacks
The Pleasures of Reading in the Age of Distraction - Alan Jacobs
A Reader on Reading - Alberto Manguel
Reading Matters: Five Centuries of Discovering Books - Margaret Willes
Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World - Nicholas Basbanes
Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World - Lawrence Goldstone et al.
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