A Passion for Books: A Book Lover's Treasury of Stories, Essays, Humor, Lore, and Lists on Collecting, Reading, Borrowing, Lending, Caring for, and Appreciating Books [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

~ Harold Rabinowitz (Author), Rob Kaplan (Author) "I am unpacking my library..." (more)
Key Phrases: book collecting, book collector, New York, New Testament, Aldine Press (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Rabinowitz (Pushing the Envelope: Airplanes of the Jet Age) and Kaplan (an editor at HarperCollins) have put together a delightfully eclectic collection of anecdotes, stories, essays, humor, cartoons, quotes, and lists written by writers, critics, booksellers, and book collectors, as well as by the editors themselves. The material speaks not to the activity of reading but rather to the pleasure derived from choosing, holding, and having books. This subject matter makes the work truly unique. Book collectors will smile and nod in agreement again and again as their obsession is legitimized by everyone from Christopher Morley to Ray Bradbury to Norman Mailer to Petrarch. (Umberto Eco's "How To Organize a Public Library" should be required reading in all MLS programs.) A "Bibliobibliography" is provided. This superbly edited collection is highly recommended for all libraries.AAngela M. Weiler, SUNY Libs. at Morrisville
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

"When I have a little money, I buy books. And if any is left, I buy food and clothing."
--Desiderius Erasmus

Those who share Erasmus's love of those curious bundles of paper bound together between hard or soft covers know exactly how he felt. These are the people who can spend hours browsing through a bookstore, completely oblivious not only to the passage of time but to everything else around them, the people for whom buying books is a necessity, not a luxury. A Passion for Books is a celebration of that love, a collection of sixty classic and contemporary essays, stories, lists, poems, quotations, and cartoons on the joys of reading, appreciating, and collecting books.

This enriching collection leads off with science-fiction great Ray Bradbury's Foreword, in which he remembers his penniless days pecking out Fahrenheit 451 on a rented typewriter, conjuring up a society so frightened of art that it burns its books. This struggle--financial and creative--led to his lifelong love of all books, which he hopes will cosset him in his grave, "Shakespeare as a pillow, Pope at one elbow, Yeats at the other, and Shaw to warm my toes. Good company for far-travelling."

Booklovers will also find here a selection of writings by a myriad of fellow sufferers from bibliomania. Among these are such contemporary authors as Philip Roth, John Updike, Umberto Eco, Robertson Davies, Nicholas Basbanes, and Anna Quindlen; earlier twentieth-century authors Chris-topher Morley, A. Edward Newton, Holbrook Jackson, A.S.W. Rosenbach, William Dana Orcutt, Robert Benchley, and William Targ; and classic authors such as Michel de Montaigne, Gustave Flaubert, Petrarch, and Anatole France.

Here also are entertaining and humorous lists such as the "Ten Best-Selling Books Rejected by Publishers Twenty Times or More," the great books included in Clifton Fadiman and John Major's New Lifetime Reading Plan, Jonathan Yardley's "Ten Books That Shaped the American Character," "Ten Memorable Books That Never Existed," "Norman Mailer's Ten Favorite American Novels," and Anna Quindlen's "Ten Big Thick Wonderful Books That Could Take You a Whole Summer to Read (but Aren't Beach Books)."

Rounding out the anthology are selections on bookstores, book clubs, and book care, plus book cartoons, and a specially prepared "Bibliobibliography" of books about books.

Whether you consider yourself a bibliomaniac or just someone who likes to read, A Passion for Books will provide you with a lifetime's worth of entertaining, informative, and pleasurable reading on your favorite subject--the love of books.

A Sampling of the Literary Treasures in A Passion for Books

  Umberto Eco's "How to Justify a Private Library," dealing with the question everyone with a sizable library is inevitably asked: "Have you read all these books?"

  Anatole Broyard's "Lending Books," in which he notes, "I feel about lending a book the way most fathers feel about their daughters living with a man out of wedlock."

  Gustave Flaubert's Bibliomania, the classic tale of a book collector so obsessed with owning a book that he is willing to kill to possess it.

   A selection from Nicholas Basbanes's A Gentle Madness, on the innovative arrangements Samuel Pepys made to guarantee that his library would survive "intact" after his demise.

  Robert Benchley's "Why Does Nobody Collect Me"--in which he wonders why first editions of books by his friend Ernest Hemingway are valuable while his are not, deadpanning "I am older than Hemingway and have written more books than he has."

  George Hamlin Fitch's extraordinarily touching "Comfort Found in Good Old Books," on the solace he found in books after the death of his son.

  A selection from Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life, in which she shares her optimistic view on the role of reading and the future of books in the computer age.

  Robertson Davies's "Book Collecting," on the difference between those who collect rare books because they're valuable and those who collect them because they love books, ultimately making it clear which is "the collector who really matters."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (October 6, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812931122
• ISBN-13: 978-0812931129
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #827,483 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Harmless Madness, June 29, 2001

By	debra crosby (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Passion for Books : A Book Lover's Treasury of Stories, Essays, Humor, Love and Lists on Collecting, Reading, Borrowing, Lending, Caring for, and Appreciating Books (Paperback)

This is a charming, amusing, often poignant glimpse into the mind of the bibliophile, and I, for one, was reassured that I am certainly not alone in my addiction to books (even the smell of them!). I have far more books than I can ever read in one lifetime, unless I am held prisoner in my home for the next 50 years and have nothing else to occupy my time (come to think of it, that doesn't sound half bad), but I must keep buying them, because I not only love to read, but I love the heft, the texture, the smell, the look of a book, and have ever since I can remember. I was heartbroken when I had to give back my first textbook (which I thought was a gift to me!), a reader called "Spot," and perhaps that childhood trauma is still with me! So I surround myself with MY books, and my husband does the same, and we read as much as we can, and it gives us great pleasure. This book has essays, stories, lists (I felt guilty when I hadn't read enough of the books, or, horrors! hadn't heard of some of them!, and even the gentle angst of the guilty book thief or two. Each writer has his own perspective on his addiction to books. Anyone who doesn not care to read has a gaping hole in his soul, I think, and will not care for this book. The rest of us can take consolation in reading the well-chosen words of those who can articulate what this gentle madness feels like and how life-enriching it truly is.

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If You Love Reading, You'll Love This Book, March 11, 2001

By	A. Wolverton (Crofton, MD United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Passion for Books : A Book Lover's Treasury of Stories, Essays, Humor, Love and Lists on Collecting, Reading, Borrowing, Lending, Caring for, and Appreciating Books (Paperback)

This book is an absolute necessity for book lovers. The editors have put together a wonderful collection of essays, stories, lists, and cartoons all about books. Every aspect of books is covered: collecting, reading, borrowing, lending, caring for, the history of, and much more. If you are the type of person who can spend hours in a bookstore, if you feel as if you are losing an arm or leg when you lend out a book, or if you don't understand why nobody else around you shares your love for print, this book is for you. Enjoy.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true sense of the bibliophile, April 11, 2000

By A Customer

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection, and saw myself--a true bibliophile--captured in many of the pieces. It is interspersed with fun cartoons (booklovers will want these on your bulletin boards) and lists that will make you think "what would my picks be for this list?". The two pieces by the editors also capture two different types of book collectors - the methodical, organized (maybe a little obsessive) type and the collector whose collection almost overruns his life, while expressing in a concrete way, his interests and passion for the subjects covered.

This book should be of interest to collectors of all types because it shows the devotion, the passion and the energy invested in accumulating something you love.