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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
If you love books, you'll love this one!, January 10, 2006
The announcement of a new book by Nicholas Basbanes is an occasion of joy for any devoted reader who loves reading about books. My copies of Basbanes' works are the backbone of my collection of books about books, and it is he who introduced me to the dazzling world of the "gently mad." Since reading A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books, I eagerly await each installment to discover what secret corridors and closed doors he will open next. Basbanes' works act as a secret handshake that allows entry to a world any serious bibliophile longs to enter, a world devoted to the care, handling and love of the printed word. In Every Books Its Reader, the social history of the book is explored from the perspective of the reader. Basbanes explores the meaning readers give to texts through their personal experiences, and how that experience helps connect with others. He says, "We are not only the product of what we read, we are in association with others who have read the same things." Early I discovered 84 Charing Cross Road, a book that became a dear friend to be revisited often. Helene Hanff showed what a love of reading can truly bring to a life, the journey one can take through books with a helpful guide. Nicholas Basbanes easily fills this role. His pages resonate with quotes and stories and his love of books fairly bursts off the page. He carries the reader to a new path that leads to books, "a book casually encountered by an imaginative mind, lighting a spark that ignites a flame of creativity...." At the start of Every Books Its Reader, Basbanes shares a story that ends "...if ever I go to Heaven I know where to find her. I shall go straight over to the corner by the bookcases." When I get there, I shall expect to find Nicholas Basbanes there, holding court. Armchair Interviews says: IF you LOVE books, you will love this one.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Basbanes Paean To Books, June 23, 2006
I can never get my fill of Nicholas Basbanes. His love of books, libraries, and reading echo so many of my own traits, making his books treats that will bear innumberable rereadings and savorings. Every Book Its Reader continues Basbanes' familiar theme of the continuing importance of the printed word in today's society. It expands it by focussing on studies of the libraries of eminent booklovers of the past such as Edward Gibbon and through interviews with great living writers/readers like David McCullough and Harold Bloom. Basbanes branches into fascinating discussions on the art of translation, for example, that illuminate obscure but valuable corners of the world of books. In other words, there is a wealth of information about books and reading in Every Book Its Reader, but the most important reason to read it is its evocation of the joy of reading. Basbanes and his readers will undoubtedly echo the sentiment of May Lamberton Becker, one of his subjects in Every Book Its Reader, in saying that if we get to heaven, we will meet each other in the corner by the bookcases.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Basbanes' Fourth Best Book, July 6, 2006
I bought and read this book because I much enjoyed Basbanes' previous trilogy, especially PATIENCE AND FORTITUDE. But compared to his trilogy, this book looks too hurried and thrown together. There has been too little care with the organization and an occasional major gaff intrudes, such as his assertion that some of Goethe's poetry was "set to music by Mozart and Bach" (p. 279). Starting with high expectations, I was disappointed. Even so, this is a book I will keep, and probably return to, because it still has much to offer. Like his previous books, this is addressed to bibliophiles and deals with topics dear to them. In particular, it deals with readers, many of whom are famous, but some of whom are convicts and some of whom are small children. The book finds a dozen ways to emphasize the value and influence of books. The chapter on physicians and their books should appeal to every doctor on the continent. Basbanes interviewed a good number of legendary American readers--Harold Bloom, Helen Vendler, Daniel Aaron, Robert Coles--collecting comments that will make this book of interest to common readers and fulltime scholars. Though Basbanes is too much of a gentleman to make much of it, some of these learned people come across as amusing fools, and some flatly contradict each other. Thus Basbanes provides expert testimony that books can be beloved by wildly different people because they read books differently, and because they love different books. The only author I can compare to Basbanes is the wonderful Holbrook Jackson (an author Basbanes admires, too), because both allow their passion for books to be motive enough: they do not let themselves be distracted (at least not for long) by peeves or pieties. The personalities that guide their readers along are congenial, even affectionate, glad to have your attention and trying to repay it with every page.
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