For the Love of Books [Hardcover]

Ronald B. Shwartz (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

William Faulkner. Great Expectations. Marcel Proust. Moby Dick. Mark Twain. War and Peace. Virginia Woolf. Ulysses. Ernest Hemingway. They all show up repeatedly in For the Love of Books, for which each of 115 writers was asked to discuss the three to six books that influenced him or her the most. But the Hardy Boys are here, too, and Archie comics, as well as the Bobbsey Twins and Harold and the Purple Crayon. We are most susceptible to the impact of literature when we are in our 20s and younger, it seems, and several of the authors included here focus their attention on those early influences--how well they hold up over time.

Many of the book's contributors liken relationships with treasured books to those with loved ones. Some of Louis Begley's favorites (The Divine Comedy, Remembrance of Things Past), "like my children, are always on my mind." Mona Simpson warns that "we fall in with books the way we fall in with friends, irrationally, often permanently, not always wisely." The reading of some books, adds Guy Davenport, can even forge friendships: "A friendship lasting thirty years," he says, "began with the discovery at a dull luncheon that we had both read Hugh Miller."

Narrowing down one's favorite books to a mere half-dozen would daunt any reader, but it must be particularly arduous for those who eat and breathe books. While D.M. Thomas believes that "there are just a few books that, once you've read them, flow in your bloodstream," Neil Simon complains that "pin[ning] down the three or even six books that have left the greatest impression on me ... denies the four or five hundred great books that have imperceptibly changed my outlook on life." Some writers, says David Leavitt, "one thinks of as great but cannot love"; others "one loves but cannot think of as great." What a great pleasure it is to see the great and the not great, the humbling and the inspiring, gathered under one literary roof. And what a terrific task it would be to follow all the tendrils growing and shooting off toward so many sources of light, each a promise from a renowned contemporary writer that some kind of delicious reading can be found there. --Jane Steinberg

Review

"An incomparable addition to a book lover's library, too delightful and inspiring to miss . . . as varied and satisfying a start on new reading directions as one is likely to find." -- The Denver Post

"Enough delights to keep book lovers interested - and occasionally enthralled." -- The Boston Globe

"Here comes one that stands out from the crowd. It might be thought that the authors of the stature Shwartz approached would tell him to get lost, but he wound up with enough for this book. Readers are in for a rare treat." -- The Richmond Times-Dispatch

"If you're a book lover, this is pretty irresistible stuff." -- The Chicago Sun-Times

"It's a great service to the reading public that Shwartz has braved the authorial whip to create this book lover's delight." -- The Boston Phoenix

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult (March 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399144668
• ISBN-13: 978-0399144660
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,061,072 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars buy one for yourself, and 10 for your friends-extraordinary!, November 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: For the Love of Books (Hardcover)

Remarkable front to back. I have loved books all my life, lectured and written about them throughout a long career, and reflected at length on the whole question of what the point of reading is anyway, and why anyone-on whatever path in life-would bother. I don't profress to be a reigning authority on books or on life; but as the end of my own life approaches, perhaps I'm qualified to shout from the rafters that those who think life too short or too full of more practical pursuits or interesting diversions-or think reading is a luxury too rich for their blood (or not rich enough)-have missed the point. No book I have ever read is more illustrative than For The Love of Books: 115 Celebrated Writers on the Books They Love Most. I'm grateful to Mr. Shwartz for having the temerity to conceive of this wonderfully engaging and seductive book and the enormous dedication to see it through. Yet for all the discipline, tact, and resourcefulness it obviously required, I suspect something even more precious at work here. I doubt that many of the world-class writers who agreed to take part would have given Shwartz the time of day had they not sensed in him, as I do, an exquisite literary intelligence of his own. Shwartz has given me a lasting gift and I cannot imagine a book more worthy of giving others and not just book lovers-a perfect gift even and maybe especially for those who think good books are mostly for the "bookish." A simply extraordinary achievement.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for casual browsing, October 10, 1999

By 

Michael Golden - See all my reviews

This review is from: For the Love of Books (Hardcover)

If you're a booklover with eclectic tastes, who likes to roam the aisles of libraries and bookstores, this is a book you'll want to keep and refer back to again and again. It is greatly rewarding not only for the books that are mentioned, but for what they reveal about the writers who were influenced by them. While many of the old standards --- Melville, Shakespeare, Hemingway, Faulkner, Proust, Joyce --- are given their due by the writers, there are surprises at every turn. For example, a book that I had never heard of --- "Epitaph of a Small Winner," by Machado de Assis, was singled out by no fewer than three of the writers (Pete Hamill, John Barth, and Thomas McGuane.) Indeed, just sifting through the bibliographical index to see which authors had multiple references (e.g. Melville had eight)was most instructive. The essays are, for the most part, thoughtful and stimulating. This is a great book for random browsing...I came away from it stimulated and entertained, but also guilty and frustrated, knowing I'll never have time to read but a tiny fraction of the books that have so inspired others.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even more depth than meets the eye, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: For the Love of Books (Hardcover)

This book is so good, on so many levels, that it's hard to know where to begin to praise it. For those whose idols are writers, there are stellar names -- Mailer, Updike, Gordimer -- who have contributed original pieces to this unique anthology. Furthermore, each essay is intensely personal, setting forth the writer's own best-loved books and authors. You can play amateur sleuth and try to deduce how the writer's own output was shaped by what s/he cherishes, or assemble a reading list of often little-known books which have deeply influenced someone who has deeply influenced you. And the essays themselves are literature. You can consider yourself well-read, I think, and never have heard of say, Guy Davenport, described as an award-winning translator, poet, and modernist fiction writer in the handy biographical notes. Ordinarily, I wouldn't be drawn to his subject matter, but his essay is so down-to-earth and engaging, I want to reach both his books and those of others whom he admires. This book has already lead me to previously unfamiliar writers, including Carol Shields, John Casey, and Elizabeth McCracken, which automatically amortizes the purchase price over the rest of my lifetime and means I could die tomorrow and still have gotten my money's worth. My one regret is that the introduction by editor Ronald B. Shwartz, who clearly spent two years of his life's blood assembling this collection, only hints at what an extraordinary experience it must start with one good idea and build it into this impressive monument to bibliphilism. I hope the full story of this accomplishment will become his next book.