Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.