Bloomsbury Review Booklover's Guide: A Collection of Tips, Techniques, Anecdotes, Controversies & Suggestions for the Home Library [Paperback]

Patricia Jean Wagner (Author), Sherry Lynn Watson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For three years, Patricia Jean Wagner gathered advice from booksellers, librarians, collectors, publishers and others on forming a home library. The result is The Bloomsbury Review BookLover's Guide, which, as the subtitle says, is "A Collection of Tips, Techniques, Anecdotes, Controversies & Suggestions for the Home Library." With information on everything from setting up a computer database to what to do with your precious and (if you've followed all the conservation tips) well-preserved library once you're gone.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Starting from the idea that "the difference between a bunch of books and a library is the difference between not knowing and knowing," poet, author, and journalist Wagner, who writes the "Practical Bookshelf" column in Bloomsbury Review, gathers between two covers everything one needs to know to transform a bunch of books into a library that works. Her book alternates between topical lists of resources and narrative sections of step-by-step, how-to information. Among the interesting and useful parts are a short and breezy section on evaluating the physical state of your books, with details on weeding, mold and pests, storage, display, and retrieval; an explanation of the how, what, when, and where of acquiring books; a discussion of the book market; and sections on cataloging, restoration, conservation, online and Internet resources, home archives, and ways to pass the love of books on to the next generation. Wagner writes in an irreverent style and presents much expert information in an enjoyable way. Her work fills a niche at the public library reference desk by providing a source aimed at the home librarian that is comprehensive, serious, and up-to-date. Recent titles worth noting in a similar vein are Jane Williams's How To Stock a Home Library Inexpensively (Blue Stocking, 1995) and Allen Ahearn's Book Collecting (Putnam, 1995), which is aimed more at the antiquarian. Recommended for most public libraries.?Paul A. D'Alessandro, Portland P.L., Me.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Review; 1st ed edition (December 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963158945
• ISBN-13: 978-0963158949
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,024,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Tired and disappointing guide to book collecting practises, September 9, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bloomsbury Review Booklover's Guide: A Collection of Tips, Techniques, Anecdotes, Controversies & Suggestions for the Home Library (Paperback)

With reservations I bought this book hoping that it would offer something fresh in the way of book conservation tips, shelving systems, organization, or even a pleasant excursion into the slightly mad world of book collecting. I was more tired than disappointed then, though a bit of both, to find that this is a far too breezy compendium of advice better gleaned from any number of more interesting sources. Readers would be better served to turn back to the masters of the genre---writers like Vincent Starrett, Christopher Morley, or John Carter, for the lore and practise of book collecting, and to the Bro-Dart catalogue for the tips on maintaining a collection. All in all, I thought this was a lackluster effort.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A decent guide to information I'll probably never use, October 23, 2002

By 

Andrew S. Rogers (Stamford, Connecticut) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bloomsbury Review Booklover's Guide: A Collection of Tips, Techniques, Anecdotes, Controversies & Suggestions for the Home Library (Paperback)

With respect, I think I can bridge the widely-divergent opinions of the two other reviews on this page by saying that the usefulness of this title depends greatly on what kind of bibliophile you are, what goals you have for your personal library, and how seriously you take your books. Certainly, other writers have covered this ground with more specialization and/or style (I found the author's "breezy" tone somewhat annoying at times). But if you're a book lover who's just starting to think about taking better care of your collection -- or discovering that people have actually written books about collecting books -- then this guide probably isn't a bad place to start.

This Booklover's Guide covers a wide range of topics -- everything from auditing your collection, to deciding what and how to collect, to classification and storage, to repair (including serious stuff like rebinding and chemical cleaning). And there are sections on archives, professional librarians, the history of the book, and more. In short, more information, probably, than most casual readers will probably need. If, like me, the major classification in your library is "Stuff I Like," and your main motive in collecting the books is the hopeful optimism that someday you'll have read them all, then a good deal of the information here may be of less use to you. On the other hand, if you have a serious collection of old or rare titles, signed first editions, or other reasons to have a real interest in long-term preservation, then this might not be a bad place to get started.

One thing I can't criticize is the author's obvious love of books and book collecting. This title is a good introduction to the universe of bibliophilia. If you're already an experienced traveler in that universe, you probably don't need this book. But if you're a new arrival or casual tourist, this guide could come in fairly handy. You may never use most of the information here, but that's probably true of any Fodor's guide too.