| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
› Find signed collectible books: 'Among the Gently Mad : Perspectives and Strategies for the Book-Hunter in the 21st Century'
More editions of Among the Gently Mad : Perspectives and Strategies for the Book-Hunter in the 21st Century:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Among the Gently Mad : Strategies and Perspectives for the Book Hunter in the 21st Century'
More editions of Among the Gently Mad : Strategies and Perspectives for the Book Hunter in the 21st Century:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Anatomy of Bibliomania'
An unmitigated delight for any bibliophile, Holbrook Jackson's "Anatomy of Bibliomania" is the cornerstone of his indispensable trio of books on 'the usefulness, purpose, and pleasures that proceed from books'. "The Anatomy of Bibliomania" begins at the beginning, when books first started to appear, and gives book lovers the solace and company of book lovers from ancient Rome, the Renaissance, and the Romantics. Jackson inspects the allure of books, their curative and restorative properties, and the passion for them that leads to bibliomania ('a genial mania, less harmful than the sanity of the sane'). With deliciously understated wit, he comments on why we read, where we read - on journeys, at mealtimes, on the toilet (this has 'a long but mostly unrecorded history'), in bed, and in prison - and what happens to us when we read. He touches on bindings, bookworms, libraries, and the sport of book hunting, as well as the behavior of borrowers, embezzlers, thieves, and collectors. Francis Bacon, Anatole France, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Leigh Hunt, Marcel Proust, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Shakespeare, and scores of other luminaries chime in on books and their love for them. Unlike most manias, bibliomania is an ennobling affliction, worth cultivating, improving, and enjoying to its heights and depths. Entertaining as well as instructive, "The Anatomy of Bibliomania" is a book no book lover - and certainly no bibliomaniac - can afford to be without. [via]
More editions of The Anatomy of Bibliomania:

› Find signed collectible books: 'At Home With Books: How Booklovers Live With and Care for Their Libraries'
For the bibliophile anxious to enhance the home library, At Home with Books presents both practical advice and divine inspiration. Chapters on starting a collection, organizing the library, and caring for books offer useful information on categorizing, editing, storage, and space-saving--"break down the books into categories by subject matter ... and compare their quantities to the available shelf space. If necessary, measure. Consider the book's height as well as its width. You may need to adjust your shelves to optimize your space." "Library Lighting," "The Art of the Bookshelf," and "Library Ladders" further encourage collectors to create a personal space suitable for its intended purpose, yet reflective of one's passion--"shelf lighting can draw attention to cherished objects and volumes; track lights can highlight certain areas of your room." Interspersed throughout these highly helpful chapters are interviews with noteworthy bibliophiles, including Keith Richards, Loren and Frances Rothschild, Bill Blass, and Paul Getty, whose "literary lairs"--ranging from the classic book-lined walls to books in the kitchen and the bathroom--are beautifully photographed, making At Home with Books not only a valuable resource for the dedicated collector, but a beautiful addition to any collection. [via]
More editions of At Home With Books: How Booklovers Live With and Care for Their Libraries:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction'
More editions of Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason'
The response to Nancy Pearls surprise bestseller Book Lust was astounding: the Seattle librarian even became the model for the now-famous Librarian Action Figure. Readers everywhere welcomed Pearls encyclopedic but discerning filter on books worth reading, and her Rule of 50 (give a book 50 pages before deciding whether to continue; but readers over 50 must read the same number of pages as their age) became a standard MO. [via]
More editions of Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Book of Books'
Although we may have been taught not to judge a book by its cover, photographer Abelardo Morell reverses the old saying and delightfully shows us how to relish a book by its look. This inventive and clever photographic ode to the printed word captures all the powerful possibilities contained on the page. A Book of Books gives us images that range from formal studies of shape and texture to the joyously whimsical.
Most luminous are the sculptural renditions, fluid pages curving over their spines like majestic mountains in the distance. The abstract pattern of a dictionary takes on the enigmatic characteristics of crop circles, while a water-damaged book shows itself as a twisted organic form. An aging book slowly decays in a stark image of paper so fragile it has practically turned to dust. Library stacks seen from above become a labyrinth through Morells lens. Includes a lovely preface by Nicholson Baker. Perfect for any book enthusiast. (52 duotone photographs) --J.P. Cohen [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Book on the Bookshelf'
Consider the book. Though Goodnight Moon and Finnegans Wake differ considerably in content and intended audience, they do share some basic characteristics. They have pages, they're roughly the same shape, and whether in a bookstore, library, or private home, they are generally stored vertically on shelves. Indeed, this is so much the norm that in these days of high-tech printing presses and chain bookstores, it's easy to believe that the book, like the cockroach, remains much the same as it ever was. But as Henry Petroski makes abundantly clear in Book on the Bookshelf, books as we know them have had a long and complex evolution. Indeed, he takes us from the scroll to the codex to the hand-lettered illuminated texts that were so rare and valuable they were chained to lecterns to prevent theft. Along the way he provides plenty of amusing anecdotes about libraries (according to one possibly apocryphal account, the library at Alexandria borrowed the works of the great Greek authors from Athens, had them copied, and then sent the copies back, keeping the originals), book collectors, and the care of books.
Book-lover though he may be, however, Henry Petroski is, first and foremost, an engineer and so, in the end, it is the evolution of bookshelves even more than of books that fascinates him. Pigeonholes for scrolls, book presses containing thousands of chained volumes, rotating lecterns that allowed scholars to peruse more than one book at a time--these are just a few of the ingenious methods readers have devised over the centuries for storing their books: "in cabinets beneath the desks, on shelves in front of them, in triangular attic-like spaces formed under the back-to-back sloped surfaces of desktops or small tabletop lecterns that rested upon a horizontal surface." Placing books vertically on shelves, spines facing outward, is a fairly recent invention, it would seem. Well written as it is, if Book on the Bookshelf were only about books-as-furniture, it would have little appeal to the general reader. Petroski, however, uses this treatise on design to examine the very human motivations that lie behind it. From the example of Samuel Pepys, who refused to have more titles than his library could hold (about 3,000), to an appendix detailing all the ways people organize their collections (by sentimental value, by size, by color, and by price, to name a few of the more unconventional methods), Petroski peppers his account with enough human interest to keep his audience reading from cover to cover. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of The Book on the Bookshelf:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Booked to Die'
Denver homicide detective Cliff Janeway may not always play by the book, but he is an avid collector of rare and first editions. After a local bookscout is killed on his turf, Janeway would like nothing better than to rearrange the suspect's spine. But the suspect, local lowlife Jackie Newton, is a master at eluding the law, and Janeway's wrathful brand of off-duty justice costs him his badge.
Turning to his lifelong passion, Janeway opens a small bookshop -- all the while searching for evidence to put Newton away. But when prized volumes in a highly sought-after collection begin to appear, so do dead bodies. Now, Janeway's life is about to start a precarious new chapter as he attempts to find out who's dealing death along with vintage Chandlers and Twains.
Includes information on John Dunning's new Cliff Janeway novel, The Bookman's Promise, coming soon in hardcover from Scribner [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Bookman's Wake'
Denver cop-turned-bookdealer Cliff Janeway is lured by an enterprising fellow ex-policeman into going to Seattle to bring back a fugitive wanted for assault, burglary, and the possible theft of a priceless edition of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven." The bail jumper turns out to be a vulnerable young woman calling herself Eleanor Rigby, who is also a gifted book finder. Janeway is intrigued by the woman -- and by the deadly history surrounding the rare volume. Hunted by people willing to kill for the antique tome, a terrified Eleanor escapes and disappears. To find her -- and save her -- Janeway must unravel the secrets of the book's past and its mysterious maker, for only then can he stop the hand of death from turning another page.... [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Books in My Baggage: Adventures in Reading and Collecting'
More editions of Books in My Baggage: Adventures in Reading and Collecting:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Business of Books : How the International Conglomerates Took over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read'
A riveting chronicle of the rise and fall of the American reader.Village Voice
Post-war American publishing has been ruthlessly transformed since Andre Schiffrin joined its ranks in 1956. Gone is a plethora of small but prestigious houses that often put ideas before profit in their publishing decisions, sometimes even deliberately. Now six behemoths share 80% of the market and profit margin is all.More editions of The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Casanova Was a Book Lover: And Other Naked Truths and Provocative Curiosities About the Writing, Selling, and Reading of Books'
More editions of Casanova Was a Book Lover: And Other Naked Truths and Provocative Curiosities About the Writing, Selling, and Reading of Books:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Club Dumas'
Fallen angels, satanic manuals, and a passion for the works of Raphael Sabatini and Alexandre Dumas among others--this is the stuff of Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte's engrossing novel The Club Dumas. Set in a world of antiquarian booksellers where dealers would gladly betray their own mothers to get their hands on a rare volume, The Club Dumas is a thinking person's thriller: in addition to a riveting plot, the book is full of intriguing details that range from the working habits of Alexandre Dumas to how one might go about forging a 17th-century text. Woven through these meditations is enough murder, sex, and the occult to keep both the hero, Lucas Corso, and the reader hopping.
As in his previous novel, The Flanders Panel, set in the world of art restoration, Mr. Pérez-Reverte has written a literary thriller to tease both the intellect and adrenaline gland. Lucas Corso makes a complex, ultimately sympathetic hero, and there's plenty to delight in the intricate twists and turns the story takes before the mystery of The Club Dumas is finally solved. [via]
More editions of The Club Dumas:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Design of Books'
More editions of The Design of Books:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions'
Everyone who has ever wondered what the druids were really like or what the early UFOlogists thought they saw in the sky will enjoy this wild ride of a book. [via]
More editions of Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions:

› Find signed collectible books: 'El Nombre De La Rosa'
More editions of El Nombre De La Rosa:
› Find signed collectible books: 'El nombre de la rosa / The Name of the Rose'
More editions of El nombre de la rosa / The Name of the Rose:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Ex Libris'
More editions of Ex Libris:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader'
The subtitle of Anne Fadiman's slim collection of essays is Confessions of a Common Reader, but if there is one thing Fadiman is not, it's common. In her previous work of nonfiction, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, she brought both skill and empathy to her balanced exploration of clashing cultures and medical tragedy. The subject matter here is lighter, but imbued with the same fine prose and big heart. Ex Libris is an extended love letter to language and to the wonders it performs. Fadiman is a woman who loves words; in "The Joy of Sesquipedalians" (very long words), she describes an entire family besotted with them: "When I was growing up, not only did my family walk around spouting sesquipedalians, but we viewed all forms of intellectual competition as a sacrament, a kind of holy water as it were, to be slathered on at every opportunity." From very long words it's just a short jump to literature, and Fadiman speaks joyfully of books, book collecting, and book ownership ("In my view, nineteen pounds of old books are at least nineteen times as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar"). In "Marrying Libraries" Fadiman describes the emotionally fraught task of merging her collection with her husband's: "After five years of marriage and a child, George and I finally resolved that we were ready for the more profound intimacy of library consolidation. It was unclear, however, how we were to find a meeting point between his English-garden approach and my French-garden one." Perhaps some marriages could not have stood the strain of such an ordeal, but for this one, the merging of books becomes a metaphor for the solidity of their relationship.
Over the course of 18 charming essays Fadiman ranges from the "odd shelf" ("a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection reveals a good deal about its owner") to plagiarism ("the more I've read about plagiarism, the more I've come to think that literature is one big recycling bin") to the pleasures of reading aloud ("When you read silently, only the writer performs. When you read aloud, the performance is collaborative"). Fadiman delivers these essays with the expectation that her readers will love and appreciate good books and the power of language as much as she does. Indeed, reading Ex Libris is likely to bring up warm memories of old favorites and a powerful urge to revisit one's own "odd shelf" pronto. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Fine Art of Literary Mayhem: A Lively Account of Famous Writers and Their Feuds'
More editions of Fine Art of Literary Mayhem: A Lively Account of Famous Writers and Their Feuds:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Frontier Lawmen'
More editions of Frontier Lawmen:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books'
What a delightful book about books and people who love books! As a second generation bibliophile, a possible bibliomane who had several people move out of my house a year ago because they erroneously believed that my books were taking over the household, and a devout employee of "Earth's Biggest Bookstore," I can vouch that Basbanes accurately describes the glorious role of book collectors as archivists of human knowledge, and -- in continual counterpoint -- sometimes pathologically obsessed book junkies. [via]
More editions of A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Great Libraries: From Antiquity to the Renaissance 3000 B.C. to A.D. 1600'
More editions of The Great Libraries: From Antiquity to the Renaissance 3000 B.C. to A.D. 1600:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age'
What hath the inexpensive personal computer, the portable cassette player, and the CD-ROM wrought? Are books as we know them dead? And does--or should--it matter if they are? Birkerts, a renowned critic, examines the practice of reading with an eye to what the future will bring. [via]
More editions of The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A History of Reading'
A history of reading presents tales of book thieves, book burners, censors, anarchists, women of eleventh century Japan who had to invent their own reading material, and African-American slaves who were forbidden to read under penalty of death. 20,000 first printing. $20,000 ad/promo. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Il Nome Della Rosa'
"II libro più intelligente - ma anche il più divertente - di questi ultimi anni."Lars Gustafsson, Der Spicgel"II libro è così ricco che permette tutti i livelli di lettura ... Eco, ancora bravo!"Robert Maggiori, Libération"Brio e ironia. Eco è andato a scuola dai migliori modelli".Richard Ellmann, The New York Review of Books"Precisamente il genere di libro che, se fossi un milionario, comanderei su misura".Punch"Quando Baskerville e Adso entrarono nella stanza murata allo scoccare della mezzanotte e all'ultima parola del capitolo, ho sentito, anche se è fuori moda, un caratteristico sobbalzo al cuore."Nicholas Shrimplon, The Sunday Times"È riuscito a scrivere un libro che si legge tutto d'un fiato, accattivante, comico, inatteso ..."Mario Fusco, Le Monde"È un tipo di libro che ci trasforma, che sostituisce la nostra realtà con la sua ... ci presenta un mondo nuovo nella tradizione di Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Melville, Dostoevskij, lo stesso Joyce e Garda Miirquez."Kenneth Atchity, Los Angeles Times"Mi rallegro e tutto il mondo delle lettere si rallegrerà con me, che si possa diventare best seller contro i pronostici cibernetici, e che un'opera di letteratura genuina possa soppiantare il ciarpame ... L'alta qualità e il successo non si escludono a vicenda."Anthony Burgess, The Observer [via]
More editions of Il Nome Della Rosa:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Library: An Unquiet History'
On the survival and destruction of knowledge, from Alexandria to the Internet.
Through the ages, libraries have not only accumulated and preserved but also shaped, inspired, and obliterated knowledge. Matthew Battles, a rare books librarian and a gifted narrator, takes us on a spirited foray from Boston to Baghdad, from classical scriptoria to medieval monasteries, from the Vatican to the British Library, from socialist reading rooms and rural home libraries to the Information Age.
He explores how libraries are built and how they are destroyed, from the decay of the great Alexandrian library to scroll burnings in ancient China to the destruction of Aztec books by the Spanishand in our own time, the burning of libraries in Europe and Bosnia. Encyclopedic in its breadth and novelistic in its telling, this volume will occupy a treasured place on the bookshelf next to Baker's Double Fold, Basbanes's A Gentle Madness, Manguel's A History of Reading, and Winchester's The Professor and the Madman. 11 b/w illustrations. [via]
More editions of Library: An Unquiet History:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Living With Books'
This is an inspirational book that explores over 150 ways in which books can not only be stored, but made to play a full part in the character of a home, be it large or small, minimalist or full of cluttered charm. Books are among the commonest but most treasured possessions in a home, yet their storage and display is often neglected and not given serious consideration as part of the interior design - something all the more necessary as the functions of home and workplace now often merge. Chapters are devoted to separate rooms, looking in turn at reception rooms, home offices, and libraries, as well as kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms, with over 180 colour photographs from around the world providing a wealth of inspiration. Ingenious space-saving devices are illustrated for storing books in odd spaces within the home - for example in staircases, corridors, and hallways. There is a chapter on caring for books, plus practical pages providing useful technical hints for planning and building bookshelves (scale, proportion, materials, fittings, etc), complete with illustrated step-by-step instructions showing how to carry out your own imaginative book-storage projects. Special double-page features appear in each chapter on topics such as ingenious designer solutions, book plates, and creating furniture out of books. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller, 1900-1999'
More editions of Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller, 1900-1999:

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Miscellany for Bibliophiles'
More editions of A Miscellany for Bibliophiles:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Name Of The Rose'
A 14th-century ex-Inquisitor investigates murder at a monastery and finds mysteries within mysteries. Eco's masterwork of literary genius is a fascinating and challenging read. [via]
More editions of The Name of the Rose:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Novel'
the Novel, world culture book [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Old Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book Buying Abroad'
More editions of Old Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book Buying Abroad:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Passion for Books'
"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." [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Passion for Books'
More editions of A Passion for Books:

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Passion for Books'
More editions of A Passion for Books:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Passion for Books'
More editions of A Passion for Books:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Patience & Fortitude'
In his national bestseller, A Gentle Madness, Nicholas Basbanes explored the sweet obsession people feel to possess books. Now, Basbanes continues his adventures among the "gently mad" on an irresistible journey to the great libraries of the past -- from Alexandria to Glastonbury -- and to contemporary collections at the Vatican, Wolfenbüttel, and erudite universities. Along the way, he drops in on eccentric book dealers and regales us with stories about unforgettable collectors, such as the gentleman who bought a rare book in 1939 "by selling bottles of his own blood."
Taking the book's grand title from the marble lions guarding the New York Public Library at 42nd Street, Basbanes both entertains and delights. And once again, as Scott Turow aptly noted, "Basbanes makes you love books, the collections he writes about, and the volume in your hand."
[via]More editions of Patience & Fortitude:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Patience & Fortitude: A Roving Chronicle of Book People, Book Places, and Book Culture'
A roving chronicle of book people, book places and book culture. [via]
More editions of Patience & Fortitude: A Roving Chronicle of Book People, Book Places, and Book Culture:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Polysyllabic Spree'
More editions of The Polysyllabic Spree:

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Pound Of Paper: Confessions Of A Book Addict'
More editions of A Pound Of Paper: Confessions Of A Book Addict:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary'
The compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, 70 years in the making, was an intellectually heroic feat with a twist worthy of the greatest mystery fiction: one of its most valuable contributors was a criminally insane American physician, locked up in an English asylum for murder. British stage actor Simon Jones leads us through this uncommon meeting of minds (the other belonging to self-educated dictionary editor James Murray) at full gallop. Ultimately, it's hard to say which is more remarkable: the facts of this amazingly well-researched story, or the sound of author Simon Winchester's erudite prose. Jones's reading smoothly transports listeners to the 19th century, reminding us why so many brilliant people obsessively set out to catalogue the English language. This unabridged version contains an interview between Winchester and John Simpson, editor of the Oxford dictionary. (Running time: 6.5 hours, 6 cassettes) --Lou Schuler [via]
More editions of Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Quotable Book Lover'
The bibliophiles of the world are an erudite and witty bunch, especially the hundreds of quotable sages and wags whose bons mots are collected in this tribute to the written word. The authors of these insights, spanning centuries and continents, include Aeschylus and Lady Bird Johnson, Gustave Flaubert and Francis Bacon, Russell Baker and Isadora Duncan, Katharine Hepburn and Mark Twain, Pablo Picasso and Brad Pitt.
The quotations offer witticisms as well as philosophical insights. Woody Allen quips, "I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It's about Russia." And Franz Kafka declares, "Books must be the axe to break the frozen sea inside me." Mark Twain reflects, "I like a thin book because it will steady a table, a leather volume because it will strop a razor, and a heavy book because it can be thrown at a cat." And Fran Lebowitz notes that "Magazines all too frequently lead to books, and should be regarded by the prudent as the heavy petting of literature." Aristotle observes that "To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man." H.L. Mencken explains, "I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved, which a cow enjoys on giving milk." And Thomas Mann opines that "A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."
In all, there are more than 500 quotations that pithily consider every aspect of authors, readers, collectors, and books. Entertaining and provocative, it is the sort of book that makes you sit friends down and read them just one more entry. In one such entry, Robertson Davies observes that "There are many people--happy people, it usually appears--whose thoughts at Christmas always turn to books. The notion of a Christmas tree with no books under it is repugnant and unnatural to them." This is just the sort of book to make such people remarkably content. --Stephanie Gold [via]
More editions of The Quotable Book Lover:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books'
An inspired blend of memoir and literary criticism, Reading Lolita in Tehran is a moving testament to the power of art and its ability to change and improve people's lives. In 1995, after resigning from her job as a professor at a university in Tehran due to repressive policies, Azar Nafisi invited seven of her best female students to attend a weekly study of great Western literature in her home. Since the books they read were officially banned by the government, the women were forced to meet in secret, often sharing photocopied pages of the illegal novels. For two years they met to talk, share, and "shed their mandatory veils and robes and burst into color." Though most of the women were shy and intimidated at first, they soon became emboldened by the forum and used the meetings as a springboard for debating the social, cultural, and political realities of living under strict Islamic rule. They discussed their harassment at the hands of "morality guards," the daily indignities of living under the Ayatollah Khomeini's regime, the effects of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, love, marriage, and life in general, giving readers a rare inside look at revolutionary Iran. The books were always the primary focus, however, and they became "essential to our lives: they were not a luxury but a necessity," she writes.
Threaded into the memoir are trenchant discussions of the work of Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, and other authors who provided the women with examples of those who successfully asserted their autonomy despite great odds. The great works encouraged them to strike out against authoritarianism and repression in their own ways, both large and small: "There, in that living room, we rediscovered that we were also living, breathing human beings; and no matter how repressive the state became, no matter how intimidated and frightened we were, like Lolita we tried to escape and to create our own little pockets of freedom," she writes. In short, the art helped them to survive. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
More editions of Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Reading Matter: A Rabid Bibliophile's Adventures Among Old & Rare Books'
More editions of Reading Matter: A Rabid Bibliophile's Adventures Among Old & Rare Books:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Ruined by Reading'
From the author of the acclaimed novels Disturbances in the Field and The Fatigue Artist, this wonderfully written and enchanting meditation explores what the act of reading means--an act that is in danger of being lost today. Lynne Sharon Schwartz of course isn't "ruined" by reading anymore than Tarzan was by apes; it's her life. She was a child prodigy who, beginning at age 3, was summoned to read for guests and has been immersed in the written word ever since, developing into a writer and novelist. In this essay she defends the magic of reading and its place in the development of the mind and ideas. "There is good reason for the addictive cravings of readers. The only thing new under the sun is the sound of another voice," she writes. [via]
More editions of Ruined by Reading:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Ruined by Reading : A Life in Books'
From the author of the acclaimed novels Disturbances in the Field and The Fatigue Artist, this wonderfully written and enchanting meditation explores what the act of reading means--an act that is in danger of being lost today. Lynne Sharon Schwartz of course isn't "ruined" by reading anymore than Tarzan was by apes; it's her life. She was a child prodigy who, beginning at age 3, was summoned to read for guests and has been immersed in the written word ever since, developing into a writer and novelist. In this essay she defends the magic of reading and its place in the development of the mind and ideas. "There is good reason for the addictive cravings of readers. The only thing new under the sun is the sound of another voice," she writes. [via]
More editions of Ruined by Reading : A Life in Books:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Second Impression: Rural Life With a Rare Bookman'
More editions of Second Impression: Rural Life With a Rare Bookman:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Short History of the Printed Word'
This classic book will inform the layman and delight the typophile. Here is the history of printing from the earliest alphabets, through the evolution of the printing press, the contributions of great printers and typographers, and twentieth century graphic technology. A new chapter by Robert Bringhurst takes up this short history where Chappell leaves off, covering the most recent developments in the printed word. Over 200 illustrations, appear throughout this lively narrative. [via]
More editions of A Short History of the Printed Word:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Smithsonian Book of Books'
Through more than 300 glorious illustrations from library collections around the globe, you'll discover a wealth of book lore in these pages and gain a new appreciation for the role of books in human society, from our earliest attempts at writing and recording information to the newest electronic books; from sumptuous illuminated and bejeweled medieval manuscripts to Gutenberg and the invention of movable type; from the diverse arts and crafts of bookmaking to the building of magnificent libraries for housing treasured volumes; from the ancient epic of Gilgamesh to the plays of Shakespeare and the tales of Beatrix Potter; and from the earliest illustrated books to revolutionary science texts. [via]
More editions of The Smithsonian Book of Books:
› Find signed collectible books: 'So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance'
"Reading liberates the reader and transports him from his book to a reading of himself and all of life. It leads him to participate in conversations, and in some cases to arrange them . . . It could even be said that to publish a book is to insert it into the middle of a conversation." (from So Many Books)
Join the conversation! In So Many Books, Gabriel Zaid offers his observations on the literary condition: a highly original analysis of the predicament that readers, authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians, and teachers find themselves in today--when there are simply more books than any of us can contemplate.
"...Zaid traces the preoccupation with reading back through Dr. Johnson, Seneca, and even the Bible ('Of making many books there is no end'). He emerges as a playful celebrant of literary proliferation, noting that there is a new book published every thirty seconds, and optimistically points out that publishers who moan about low sales 'see as a failure what is actually a blessing: The book business, unlike newspapers, films, or television, is viable on a small scale.' Zaid, who claims to own more than ten thousand books, says he has sometimes thought that 'a chastity glove for authors who cant contain themselves' would be a good idea. Nonetheless, he cheerfully opines that 'the truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more.'"--The New Yorker
More editions of So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World'
In A Splendor of Letters, Nicholas A. Basbanes continues the lively, richly anecdotal exploration of book people, places, and culture he began in 1995 with A Gentle Madness (a finalist that year for the National Book Critics Circle Award) and expanded in 2001 with Patience & Fortitude, a companion work that prompted the two-time Pulitzer Prizewinning historian and biographer David McCullough to proclaim him "the leading authority of books about books."
Basbanes now offers a consideration of the many pressing issues that surround the role of books in contemporary society, such as the willful destruction of books and libraries in Sarajevo, Tibet, and Cambodia, and the spirited efforts to restore them. The matter of "discards" at various libraries takes on an entirely new dimension as well, with fully researched stories about the kind of attitudes that may lead to the loss of last copies of important works.
In vivid detail, Basbanes examines the many materials that have been used over the centuries to record information -- among them clay tablets, papyrus scrolls, slabs of stone, palm leaves, animal skins, and hammered sheets of gold and copper. Also discussed are the various debates that continue to rage about preservation, which may mean saving and storing books on paper indefinitely, or as electronic data, which are by nature ephemeral.
In this beautifully packaged edition, Nicholas Basbanes brings to a close his wonderful trilogy on the remarkable world of books and bibliophiles.
[via]More editions of A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Thirteenth Tale'
Settle down to enjoy a rousing good ghost story with Diane Setterfield's debut novel, The Thirteenth Tale. Setterfield has rejuvenated the genre with this closely plotted, clever foray into a world of secrets, confused identities, lies, and half-truths. She never cheats by pulling a rabbit out of a hat; this atmospheric story hangs together perfectly.
There are two heroines here: Vida Winter, a famous author, whose life story is coming to an end, and Margaret Lea, a young, unworldly, bookish girl who is a bookseller in her father's shop. Vida has been confounding her biographers and fans for years by giving everybody a different version of her life, each time swearing it's the truth. Because of a biography that Margaret has written about brothers, Vida chooses Margaret to tell her story, all of it, for the first time. At their initial meeting, the conversation begins:
"You have given nineteen different versions of your life story to journalists in the last two years alone."
She [Vida] shrugged. "It's my profession. I'm a storyteller."
"I am a biographer, I work with facts."
The game is afoot and Margaret must spend some time sorting out whether or not Vida is actually ready to tell the whole truth. There is more here of Margaret discovering than of Vida cooperating wholeheartedly, but that is part of Vida's plan. The transformative power of truth informs the lives of both women by story's end, and The Thirteenth Tale is finally and convincingly told. --Valerie Ryan [via]
More editions of The Thirteenth Tale:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Unconditional Surrender: The Capture of Forts Henry and Donelson'
More editions of Unconditional Surrender: The Capture of Forts Henry and Donelson:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Walking a Literary Labyrinth'
More editions of Walking a Literary Labyrinth:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Walking a Literary Labyrinth : A Spirituality of Reading'
More editions of Walking a Literary Labyrinth : A Spirituality of Reading:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Leer 'Lolita' En Teheran / Reading Lolita In Teheran'
More editions of Leer 'Lolita' En Teheran / Reading Lolita In Teheran:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Leer Lolita En Teheran'
More editions of Leer Lolita En Teheran:
› Find signed collectible books: 'El Nombre de la Rosa'

› Find signed collectible books: 'Il Nome Della Rosa'
"II libro più intelligente - ma anche il più divertente - di questi ultimi anni."Lars Gustafsson, Der Spicgel"II libro è così ricco che permette tutti i livelli di lettura ... Eco, ancora bravo!"Robert Maggiori, Libération"Brio e ironia. Eco è andato a scuola dai migliori modelli".Richard Ellmann, The New York Review of Books"Precisamente il genere di libro che, se fossi un milionario, comanderei su misura".Punch"Quando Baskerville e Adso entrarono nella stanza murata allo scoccare della mezzanotte e all'ultima parola del capitolo, ho sentito, anche se è fuori moda, un caratteristico sobbalzo al cuore."Nicholas Shrimplon, The Sunday Times"È riuscito a scrivere un libro che si legge tutto d'un fiato, accattivante, comico, inatteso ..."Mario Fusco, Le Monde"È un tipo di libro che ci trasforma, che sostituisce la nostra realtà con la sua ... ci presenta un mondo nuovo nella tradizione di Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Melville, Dostoevskij, lo stesso Joyce e Garda Miirquez."Kenneth Atchity, Los Angeles Times"Mi rallegro e tutto il mondo delle lettere si rallegrerà con me, che si possa diventare best seller contro i pronostici cibernetici, e che un'opera di letteratura genuina possa soppiantare il ciarpame ... L'alta qualità e il successo non si escludono a vicenda."Anthony Burgess, The Observer [via]
More editions of Il Nome Della Rosa:
