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84, Charing Cross Road
by Helene Hanff, Frank Doel, Marks & Co

ISBN 1559211407 (1-55921-140-7)
Hardcover, Moyer Bell Ltd

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Book summary:
84, Charing Cross Road is a charming record of bibliophilia, cultural difference, and imaginative sympathy. For 20 years, an outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an increasingly touching correspondence. In her first letter to Marks & Co., Helene Hanff encloses a wish list, but warns, "The phrase 'antiquarian booksellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with expensive." Twenty days later, on October 25, 1949, a correspondent identified only as FPD let Hanff know that works by Hazlitt and Robert Louis Stevenson would be coming under separate cover. When they arrive, Hanff is ecstatic--but unsure she'll ever conquer "bilingual arithmetic." By early December 1949, Hanff is suddenly worried that the six-pound ham she's sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a kosher office. But only when FPD turns out to have an actual name, Frank Doel, does the real fun begin.
Two years later, Hanff is outraged that Marks & Co. has dared to send an abridged Pepys diary. "i enclose two limp singles, i will make do with this thing till you find me a real Pepys. THEN i will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP THINGS IN IT." Nonetheless, her postscript asks whether they want fresh or powdered eggs for Christmas. Soon they're sharing news of Frank's family and Hanff's career. No doubt their letters would have continued, but in 1969, the firm's secretary informed her that Frank Doel had died. In the collection's penultimate entry, Helene Hanff urges a tourist friend, "If you happen to pass by 84, Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me. I owe it so much." [via]
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Among the Gently Mad : Perspectives and Strategies for the Book-Hunter in the 21st Century
by Nicholas A. Basbanes

ISBN 0805051597 (0-8050-5159-7)
Hardcover, Holt & Company, Henry

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Book summary:
A field guide for the modern book collector

From the author of A Gentle Madness-a book with more than seventy thousand copies in print that delighted bibliophiles everywhere-comes a twenty-first-century guide to book collecting that deals with both the traditional methods of acquisition and the electronic tools now available on the Internet.

Sharing the superb insight he has gathered from booksellers over the years, Nicholas Basbanes offers a refresher course on the fundamentals that endure, while questioning certain practices of doubtful validity. Topics include how to determine if a book is a first edition, how to spot book club editions, the importance of dust jackets, scouting the flea markets, how to work the book fairs, and the importance of handling the goods, as well as discussing less tangible issues like spotting trends and having a focus. Then he takes a long look at the pros and cons of Internet buying, illuminating how you can use these electronic tools to your advantage and making this the book no modern collector will want to be without.
[via]
More editions of Among the Gently Mad : Perspectives and Strategies for the Book-Hunter in the 21st Century:
- Among the Gently Mad : Perspectives and Strategies for the Book-Hunter in the 21st Century: ISBN 0805051597 (0-8050-5159-7)
  Hardcover, Holt & Company, Henry
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Among the Gently Mad : Strategies and Perspectives for the Book Hunter in the 21st Century
by Nicholas A. Basbanes

ISBN 0805074414 (0-8050-7441-4)
Softcover, Holt & Company, Henry

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Book summary:
From the author of A Gentle Madness , the book that delighted bibliophiles everywhere, comes a twenty-first-century guide to book collecting that deals with both the traditional methods of acquisition and the electronic tools now available on the Internet.

Sharing the superb insight he has gathered from booksellers over the years, Nicholas A. Basbanes offers a refresher course on the fundamentals that endure, while questioning certain practices of doubtful validity. Topics include how to determine if a book is a first edition, how to spot book club editions, the significance of dust jackets, scouting the flea markets, how to work the book fairs, and the importance of handling the goods, as well as discussing less tangible issues like spotting trends and shaping a focus. Then he takes a careful look at Internet buying, pro and con, illuminating how you can use these electronic tools to your advantage, and making this the book no modern collector will want to be without.
[via]
More editions of Among the Gently Mad : Strategies and Perspectives for the Book Hunter in the 21st Century:
- Among the Gently Mad : Strategies and Perspectives for the Book Hunter in the 21st Century: ISBN 0805074414 (0-8050-7441-4)
  Softcover, Holt & Company, Henry
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The Anatomy of Bibliomania
by Holbrook Jackson

ISBN 0913720704 (0-913720-70-4)
Hardcover, Frederic C Beil

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Book summary:
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:
- The Anatomy of Bibliomania: ISBN 0913720704 (0-913720-70-4)
  Hardcover, Frederic C Beil
At Home With Books: How Booklovers Live With and Care for Their Libraries
by Caroline Seebohm, Estelle Ellis, Christopher Simon Sykes

ISBN 0517595001 (0-517-59500-1)
Hardcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
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:
- At Home With Books: How Booklovers Live With and Care for Their Libraries: ISBN 0517595001 (0-517-59500-1)
  Hardcover, Random House Inc
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Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction
by Tom Raabe, Craig McFarland Brown

ISBN 1555910807 (1-55591-080-7)
Softcover, Fulcrum Publishing

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Book summary:
This humorous tenth-anniversary edition brings book addiction out of the closet.
[via]
More editions of Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction:
- Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction: ISBN 1555912400 (1-55591-240-0)
  Softcover, Fulcrum Pub
- Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction: ISBN 1555910807 (1-55591-080-7)
  Softcover, Fulcrum Publishing
Bizarre Books
by Russell Ash, Brian Lake

ISBN 186205102X (1-86205-102-X)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square

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More editions of Bizarre Books:
- Bizarre Books: ISBN 0312082509 (0-312-08250-9)
  Hardcover, St. Martin's Press
- Bizarre Books: ISBN 186205102X (1-86205-102-X)
  Softcover, Trafalgar Square
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Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future
by Jason Epstein

ISBN 0393322343 (0-393-32234-3)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
As editor-publisher to some of the 20th-century's greatest writers (Edmund Wilson, Vladimir Nabokov, Jane Jacobs) as well as the virtual inventor of the trade paperback (meaning the "quality" type, as opposed to the drugstore mass-market), Jason Epstein is one of those rare publishing-world types who is as invested in the editorial creation of a good book as in its marketing and sales. It is that dual perspective that has guided his half-century-long publishing career and that makes this compact yet expansive professional memoir such a lively, illuminating read for anyone curious how current trade publishing--basically popular general-interest fiction and nonfiction--became obsessed with a narrow pool of quickie bestsellers to the neglect of the far greater mass of slow-burners (known in the biz as "midlist") or of the perennial sellers from years past ("backlist"). But, Epstein follows up with great enthusiasm, the time is not long before the book biz will morph into a new cyberversion of the quirky, intimate "cottage industry" that it was in its precorporate era.
It was in that era that Epstein came of age as a publisher, first at Doubleday in the 1950s, where he founded the successful Anchor Books, the first line of high-quality paperback reissues of classics. The four succeeding decades he spent at Random House, which in that time grew from a family-type shop into one of the largest and most profitable trade publishing houses in the U.S. (currently owned by the German media titan Bertelsmann). Epstein's chronicle of New York publishing jumps around nimbly in time--at one point, all the way back to the 19th century--but it is in recounting the heady, culturally efflorescent postwar years that he waxes most tender, regaling us with vignettes of Ralph Ellison, Mary McCarthy, John O'Hara, Frank O'Hara, W.H. Auden, Chester Kallman, and John Ashbery. Throughout, his entrepreneurial spirit in the service of good books is evident--first in the founding (along with, among others, his wife Barbara) of the still-extant New York Review of Books, then in the thorny 30-year process of publishing the classics imprint Library of America, and in the launching of The Reader's Catalog, a mail-order service from which customers could choose from what nearly every book on the planet in print--and which deservedly has been called the hard-copy precursor to the very site you're browsing right now.
Like The Business of Books, the recent memoir from former Pantheon Books head Andre Schiffrin (Epstein's longtime colleague within Random House), Epstein's book decries the extent to which superstores like Barnes & Noble have forced the high-stakes (and seldom fruitful) corporatization of book publishing. But Epstein prefers to look past the current situation to an imminent day when writers will sell directly to readers over the Internet, a format that will still demand the services of editors, publicists, and marketers but will cut out the costly middlemen of publishing companies, distributors, and superstores (though not small booksellers, he assures us, which nurture bonds among booklovers that even the Web can't sever). Yes, there's money to be made in trade books, Epstein asserts, but not necessarily overnight. And in this brisk, affable, and forward-looking volume, Epstein's own broad-ranging experience in the book biz seems to bear out his recurring theme: do it for love, not money, and the money (if not necessarily the millions) will eventually follow. --Timothy Murphy [via]
More editions of Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future:
- Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future: ISBN 0393049841 (0-393-04984-1)
  Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
- Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future: ISBN 0393322343 (0-393-32234-3)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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Book Finds: How to Find, Buy, and Sell Used and Rare Books
by Ian C. Ellis

ISBN 0399532382 (0-399-53238-2)
Softcover, Perigee

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Book summary:
For the experienced collector or someone embarking on a new hobby, this newly revised and updated edition of Book Finds reveals the secrets of locating rare and valuable books. Includes information on first editions and reader's copies, auctions and catalogs, avoiding costly and common beginner mistakes, strategies of professional "book scouts," and buying and selling on the Internet.

[via]
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Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason
by Nancy Pearl

ISBN 1570613818 (1-57061-381-8)
Softcover, Sasquatch Books

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Book summary:
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:
- More Book Lust: Recommended Reading For Every Mood, Moment, And Reason: ISBN 1570614350 (1-57061-435-0)
  Softcover, Sasquatch Books
- Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason: ISBN 1570613818 (1-57061-381-8)
  Softcover, Sasquatch Books
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The Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You Will Never Read
by Stuart Kelly

ISBN 1400062977 (1-4000-6297-7)
Hardcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
In an age when deleted scenes from Adam Sandler movies are saved, its sobering to realize that some of the worlds greatest prose and poetry has gone missing. This witty, wry, and unique new book rectifies that wrong. Part detective story, part history lesson, part exposé, The Book of Lost Books is the first guide to literatures what-ifs and never-weres.
In compulsively readable fashion, Stuart Kelly reveals details about tantalizing vanished works by the famous, the acclaimed, and the influential, from the time of cave drawings to the late twentieth century. Here are the true stories behind stories, poems, and plays that now exist only in imagination:

·Aristophanes Heracles, the Stage Manager was one of the playwrights several spoofs that disappeared.
·Loves Labours Won may have been a sequel to Shakespeares Loves Labours Lostor was it just an alternative title for The Taming of the Shrew?
·Jane Austens incomplete novel Sanditon, was a critique of hypochondriacs and cures started when the author was fatally ill.
·Nikolai Gogol burned the second half of Dead Souls after a religious conversion convinced him that literature was paganism.
·Some of the thousand pages of William Burroughss original Naked Lunch were stolen and sold on the street by Algerian street boys.
·Sylvia Plaths widower, Ted Hughes, claimed that the 130 pages of her second novel, perhaps based on their marriage, were lost after her death.

Whether destroyed (Socrates versions of Aesops Fables), misplaced (Malcolm Lowrys Ultramarine was pinched from his publishers car), interrupted by the authors death (Robert Louis Stevensons Weir of Hermiston), or simply never begun (Vladimir Nabokovs Speak, America, a second volume of his memoirs), these missing links create a history of literature for a parallel world. Civilized and satirical, erudite yet accessible, The Book of Lost Books is itself a find. [via]
More editions of The Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You Will Never Read:
- The Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You Will Never Read: ISBN 1400062977 (1-4000-6297-7)
  Hardcover, Random House Inc
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The Book on the Bookshelf
by Henry Petroski

ISBN 0375706399 (0-375-70639-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
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:
- The Book on the Bookshelf: ISBN 0375406492 (0-375-40649-2)
  Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
- The Book on the Bookshelf: ISBN 0375706399 (0-375-70639-9)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
Books of the Century: A Hundred Years of Authors, Ideas, and Literature
by Charles McGrath, Mark Summers

ISBN 0609806882 (0-609-80688-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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More editions of Books of the Century: A Hundred Years of Authors, Ideas, and Literature:
- Books of the Century: A Hundred Years of Authors, Ideas, and Literature: ISBN 0609806882 (0-609-80688-2)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
Books of the Century: A Hundred Years of Authors, Ideas, and Literature
by Nyt Book Rev, Charles McGrath, P. F. J. Turner

ISBN 0812929659 (0-8129-2965-9)
Hardcover, Random House Inc

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More editions of Books of the Century: A Hundred Years of Authors, Ideas, and Literature:
- Books of the Century: A Hundred Years of Authors, Ideas, and Literature: ISBN 0812929659 (0-8129-2965-9)
  Hardcover, Random House Inc
Cassanova Was a Book Lover: And Other Naked Truths and Provocative Curiosities about the Writing, Selling and Reading of Books
by John Maxwell Hamilton

ISBN 0141002336 (0-14-100233-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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More editions of Cassanova Was a Book Lover: And Other Naked Truths and Provocative Curiosities about the Writing, Selling and Reading of Books:
- Casanova Was a Book Lover: And Other Naked Truths and Provocative Curiosities About the Writing, Selling, and Reading of Books: ISBN 0807125547 (0-8071-2554-7)
  Hardcover, Louisiana State Univ Pr
- Cassanova Was a Book Lover: And Other Naked Truths and Provocative Curiosities about the Writing, Selling and Reading of Books: ISBN 0141002336 (0-14-100233-6)
  Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800
by Henri-Jean Martin, Lucien Febvre, David Gerard

ISBN 1859841082 (1-85984-108-2)
Softcover, Verso Books

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Book summary:
Books, and the printed word more generally, are aspects of modern life that are all too often taken for granted. Yet the emergence of the book was a process of immense historical importance and heralded the dawning of the epoch of modernity. In this much praised history of that process, Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin mesh together economic and technological history, sociology and anthropology, as well as the study of modes of consciousness, to root the development of the printed word in the changing social relations and ideological struggles of Western Europe. [via]
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Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper
by Nicholson Baker

ISBN 0375726217 (0-375-72621-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc

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Book summary:
Since the 1950s, our countrys greatest libraries have, as a matter of common practice, dismantled their collections of original bound newspapers and so-called brittle books, replacing them with microfilmed copies. The marketing of the brittle-paper crisis and the real motives behind it are the subject of this passionately argued book, in which Nicholson Barker pleads the case for saving our recorded heritage in its original form while telling the story of how and why our greatest research libraries betrayed the public trust by auctioning off or pulping irreplaceable collections. The players include the Library of Congress, the CIA, NASA, microfilm lobbyists, newspaper dealers, and a colorful array of librarians and digital futurists, as well as Baker himself who eventually discovers that the only way to save one important newspaper is to buy it. Double Fold is an intense, brilliantly worded narrative that is sure to provoke discussion and controversy. [via]
More editions of Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper:
- Double Fold : Libraries and the Assault on Paper: ISBN 0375504443 (0-375-50444-3)
  Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
- Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper: ISBN 0375726217 (0-375-72621-7)
  Softcover, Random House Inc
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Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World
by Nicholas A. Basbanes

ISBN 0060593245 (0-06-059324-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
Inspired by a landmark exhibition mounted by the British Museum in 1963 to celebrate five eventful centuries of the printed word, Nicholas A. Basbanes offers a lively consideration of writings that have "made things happen" in the world, works that have both nudged the course of history and fired the imagination of countless influential people.
In his fifth work to examine a specific aspect of book culture, Basbanes also asks what we can know about such figures as John Milton, Edward Gibbon, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Adams, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Henry James, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller -- even the notorious Marquis de Sade and Adolf Hitler -- by knowing what they have read. He shows how books that many of these people have consulted, in some cases annotated with their marginal notes, can offer tantalizing clues to the evolution of their character and the development of their thought.
Taking the concept one step further, Basbanes profiles some of the most articulate readers of our time -- David McCullough, Harold Bloom, Robert Fagles, Robert Coles, Helen Vendler, Elaine Pagels, Daniel Aaron, Christopher Ricks, Matthew Bruccoli, and Perri Klass among them -- who discuss such relevant concepts as literary canons, classic works in translation, the timelessness of poetry, the formation of sacred texts, and the power of literature to train physicians, nurture children, and rehabilitate criminal offenders.
"Basbanes has a deep and abiding passion for books -- a joyful addiction," Dan Smith wrote in the Toronto Star of Patience & Fortitude, characterizing his body of work as "part travelogue, part scholarship, and all story." The tradition continues with Every Book Its Reader.
[via]
More editions of Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World:
- Every Book Its Reader: The Power Of The Printed Word To Stir The World: ISBN 0060593237 (0-06-059323-7)
  Hardcover, Harpercollins
- Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World: ISBN 0060593245 (0-06-059324-5)
  Softcover, Harpercollins
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Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
by Anne Fadiman

ISBN 0374527229 (0-374-52722-9)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux

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Book summary:
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:
- Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader: ISBN 0374148600 (0-374-14860-0)
  Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
- Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader: ISBN 0374527229 (0-374-52722-9)
  Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
Frontier Lawmen
by Lee Paul

ISBN 0965792951 (0-9657929-5-1)
Softcover, Jona Books

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More editions of Frontier Lawmen:
- Frontier Lawmen: ISBN 0965792951 (0-9657929-5-1)
  Softcover, Jona Books
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A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books
by Nicholas A. Basbanes

ISBN 0805061762 (0-8050-6176-2)
Softcover, Henry Holt & Co

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Book summary:
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]
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Great Books: My Adventures With Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World
by David Denby

ISBN 0684835339 (0-684-83533-9)
Softcover, Touchstone Books

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Book summary:
At the age of forty-eight, film critic David Denby, dissatisfied with his life within the media bubble, went back to Columbia University and took again the two famous courses in Western classics Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization required of all students--courses he first took in 1961. In recent years, collections of literary and philosophical masterpieces such as those taught in these courses have been reviled by the left as oppressive and exclusionary and adored by the right as bulwarks of patriotism. Denby, the film critic for "New York magazine, wanted to dispel these cliches and to confront the books in their naked power; he wanted to find the self he had lost in a daze of media images. In "Great Books, Denby lives the common adult fantasy of returning to school with some worldly knowledge and experience of life. A gifted storyteller, he leads us on a glorious tour--by turns eloquent, witty, and moving--through the works themselves and through his experiences as a middle-aged man among freshmen. He recounts his failures and triumphs as a reader and student taking an exam led to a hilarious near-breakdown . He celebrates his rediscovery or new appreciation of such authors as Homer, Plato, the biblical writers, Augustine, Boccaccio, Hegel, Austen, Marx, Nietzsche, and Virginia Woolf. He re-creates the atmosphere of the classroom--the strategies used by a remarkable group of teachers and the strengths and weaknesses of media-age students as they grapple with these difficult, sometimes frightening works. And all year long he watches the students grow and his own life and memories break out of hiding. The result is an extraordinarily engaging blend ofcriticism, reporting, autobiography, and cultural commentary, a book about self-discovery. Denby offers a nonprofessor's look at life on campus; he addresses the vexing questions of political correctness and relativism, and he suggests that a larger crisis surrounds the teaching of the humanities. [via]
More editions of Great Books: My Adventures With Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World:
- Great Books : My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World: ISBN 0684809753 (0-684-80975-3)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
- Great Books: My Adventures With Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World: ISBN 0684835339 (0-684-83533-9)
  Softcover, Touchstone Books
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The Haunted Bookshop
by Christopher Morley

ISBN 1426411170 (1-4264-1117-0)
Softcover, Bibliobazaar

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Book summary:
Comparison Of Cultures Of England And America By English Lad Who Emigrates To Maryland. [via]
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A History of Reading
by Alberto Manguel

ISBN 0140166548 (0-14-016654-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
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]
More editions of A History of Reading:
- A History of Reading: ISBN 0670843024 (0-670-84302-4)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
- A History of Reading: ISBN 0140166548 (0-14-016654-8)
  Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Library: An Unquiet History
by Matthew Battles

ISBN 0786268506 (0-7862-6850-6)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr

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Book summary:
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 classical scriptoria to medieval monasteries, from the Vatican to the British library, from socialist reading rooms and rural home libraries to the Information Age. Encyclopedic in breadth and novelistic in its telling, Library is a slim history that speaks volumes. [via]
More editions of Library: An Unquiet History:
- Library: An Unquiet History: ISBN 0786268506 (0-7862-6850-6)
  Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making
by Adrian Johns

ISBN 0226401227 (0-226-40122-7)
Softcover, University of Chicago Press

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More editions of The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making:
- The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making: ISBN 0226401219 (0-226-40121-9)
  Hardcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
- The Nature of the Book : Print and Knowledge in the Making: ISBN 0226401227 (0-226-40122-7)
  Softcover, University of Chicago Press
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An Odyssey in Print: Adventures in the Smithsonian Libraries
by Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Nancy E. Gwinn

ISBN 1588340368 (1-58834-036-8)
Hardcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
Situated at the center of the world's largest museum complex, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries links the holdings of 22 Smithsonian museums and research centers into one system encompassing 1.5 million books and manuscripts. The expansive collection includes many rare and unusual works equal to the celebrated art and artifacts of the Smithsonian's museums. [via]
More editions of An Odyssey in Print: Adventures in the Smithsonian Libraries:
- An Odyssey in Print: Adventures in the Smithsonian Libraries: ISBN 1588340368 (1-58834-036-8)
  Hardcover, Harpercollins
Out of the Flames : The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World
by Lawrence Goldstone, Nancy Bazelon Goldstone

ISBN 0767908368 (0-7679-0836-8)
Hardcover, Broadway Books

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- Out of the Flames : The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World: ISBN 0767908368 (0-7679-0836-8)
  Hardcover, Broadway Books
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Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World
by Nancy Goldstone, Lawrence Goldstone

ISBN 0767908376 (0-7679-0837-6)
Softcover, Broadway Books

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Book summary:
Michael Servetus is one of those hidden figureheads of history who is remembered not for his name, but for the revolutionary deeds that stand in his place. Both a scientist and a freethinking theologian, Servetus is credited with the discovery of pulmonary circulation in the human body as well as the authorship of a polemical masterpiece that cost him his life. The Chrisitianismi Restituto, a heretical work of biblical scholarship, written in 1553, aimed to refute the orthodox Christianity that Servetus' old colleague, John Calvin, supported. After the book spread through the ranks of Protestant hierarchy, Servetus was tried and agonizingly burned at the stake, the last known copy of the Restitutio chained to his leg.

Servetus's execution is significant because it marked a turning point in the quest for freedom of expression, due largely to the development of the printing press and the proliferation of books in Renaissance Europe. Three copies of the Restitutio managed to survive the burning, despite every effort on the part of his enemies to destroy them. As a result, the book became almost a surrogate for its author, going into hiding and relying on covert distribution until it could be read freely, centuries later. Out of the Flames tracks the history of this special work, examining Servetus's life and times and the politics of the first information during the sixteenth century. Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone follow the clandestine journey of the three copies through the subsequent centuries and explore its author's legacy and influence over the thinkers that shared his spirit and genius, such as Leibniz, Voltaire, Rousseau, Jefferson, Clarence Dorrow, and William Osler.

Out of the Flames is an extraordinary story providing testament to the power of ideas, the enduring legacy of books, and the triumph of individual courage.

From the Hardcover edition. [via]
More editions of Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World:
- Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World: ISBN 0767908376 (0-7679-0837-6)
  Softcover, Broadway Books
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Parnassus on Wheels
by Christopher Morley

ISBN 1587155915 (1-58715-591-5)
Softcover, Wildside Pr

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Book summary:
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. [via]
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Passion for Books
by Harold Rabinowitz, Rob Kaplan, Ray Bradbury

ISBN 0812931130 (0-8129-3113-0)
Softcover, Three Rivers Pr

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Book summary:
"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]
More editions of Passion for Books:
- Passion for Books: ISBN 0812931122 (0-8129-3112-2)
  Hardcover, Random House Inc
- Passion for Books: ISBN 0812931130 (0-8129-3113-0)
  Softcover, Three Rivers Pr
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A Passion for Books
by Dale Salwak

ISBN 0312218842 (0-312-21884-2)
Hardcover, Palgrave Macmillan

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Book summary:
Nineteen original essays make up this indispensable guide for anyone who is interested in the past and future of books and the publishing industry. This book is intended as both a celebration of the value and importance of reading and a spirited defense against the many gloomy voices in our so-called electronic age that say the book will soon be obsolete. The essays explore how books shape and nourish our lives; why readers turn to books in the era of cyberspace; whether the book has a future; and the many issues that concern academic publishers who are trying to preserve the book.
[via]
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- A Passion for Books: ISBN 0312218842 (0-312-21884-2)
  Hardcover, Palgrave Macmillan
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A Passion for Books
by Terry W. Glaspey

ISBN 1565077814 (1-56507-781-4)
Hardcover, Harvest House Pub

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- A Passion for Books: ISBN 1565077814 (1-56507-781-4)
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Patience & Fortitude
by Nicholas A. Basbanes

ISBN 0060514469 (0-06-051446-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
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]
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- Patience & Fortitude: ISBN 0060514469 (0-06-051446-9)
  Softcover, Harpercollins
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Patience & Fortitude: A Roving Chronicle of Book People, Book Places, and Book Culture
by Nicholas A. Basbanes

ISBN 0060196955 (0-06-019695-5)
Hardcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
A roving chronicle of book people, book places and book culture. [via]
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- Patience & Fortitude: A Roving Chronicle of Book People, Book Places, and Book Culture: ISBN 0060196955 (0-06-019695-5)
  Hardcover, Harpercollins
A Pound Of Paper: Confessions Of A Book Addict
by John Baxter

ISBN 0312317263 (0-312-31726-3)
Softcover, Griffin

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- A Pound Of Paper: Confessions Of A Book Addict: ISBN 0312317255 (0-312-31725-5)
  Hardcover, St Martins Pr
- A Pound Of Paper: Confessions Of A Book Addict: ISBN 0312317263 (0-312-31726-3)
  Softcover, Griffin
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Printing Revolution Early Modern Europe
by Elizabeth Eisenstein

ISBN 0521607744 (0-521-60774-4)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr

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Book summary:
Although the importance of the advent of printing for Western civilisation has long been recognised, it was Professor Eisenstein, in her monumental, two-volume work, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, who provided the first full-scale treatment of the subject. This illustrated and abridged edition of Professor Eisenstein's study gives a stimulating survey of the communications revolution of the fifteenth century. It begins with a discussion of the general implications of the introduction of printing, and then explores how the shift from script to print entered into the three major movements of early modern times: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science. [via]
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Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
by Simon Winchester

ISBN 0783885008 (0-7838-8500-8)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr

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Book summary:
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:
- Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary: ISBN 0783885008 (0-7838-8500-8)
  Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
Rereadings
by Anne Fadiman

ISBN 0374530548 (0-374-53054-8)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux

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Book summary:
Is a book the same book-or a reader the same reader-the second time around? The seventeen authors in this witty and poignant collection of essays all agree on the answer: Never.

The editor of Rereadings is Anne Fadiman, and readers of her bestselling book Ex Libris (FSG, 1998) will find this volume especially satisfying. Her chosen authors include Sven Birkerts, Allegra Goodman, Vivian Gornick, Patricia Hampl, Phillip Lopate, and Luc Sante; the objects of their literary affections range from Pride and Prejudice to Sue Barton, Student Nurse. Each has selected a book or a story or a poem--or even, in one case, the lyrics on the back of the Sgt. Pepper album--that made a deep impression in his or her youth, and reread it to see how it has changed in the interim. (Of course, what has really changed is the reader.)

These essays are not conventional literary criticism; they are about relationships. The relationship between reader and book is a powerful one, and as these writers attest, it evolves over time. Rereadings reveals at least as much about the reader as about the book: each is a miniature memoir that focuses on that most interesting of topics, the protean nature of love. And as every bibliophile knows, no love is more life-changing than the love of a book.
[via]
More editions of Rereadings:
- Rereadings: ISBN 0374249423 (0-374-24942-3)
  Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
- Rereadings: ISBN 0374530548 (0-374-53054-8)
  Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Ruined by Reading
by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

ISBN 0807070823 (0-8070-7082-3)
Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin

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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:
- Ruined by Reading: ISBN 0807070823 (0-8070-7082-3)
  Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin
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Ruined by Reading : A Life in Books
by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

ISBN 0807070831 (0-8070-7083-1)
Softcover, Beacon Press

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Book summary:
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:
- Ruined by Reading : A Life in Books: ISBN 0807070831 (0-8070-7083-1)
  Softcover, Beacon Press
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Simple Pineapple Crochet
by Nihon Vogue Staff

ISBN 0870409514 (0-87040-951-4)
Softcover, Kodansha Amer Inc

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- Simple Pineapple Crochet: ISBN 0870409514 (0-87040-951-4)
  Softcover, Kodansha Amer Inc
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Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books
by Paul Collins

ISBN 1582344043 (1-58234-404-3)
Softcover, Bloomsbury Publishing

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Book summary:
A bibliophile's pilgrimage to where book lovers go when they die-Hay-on-Wye.

Paul Collins and his family abandoned the hills of San Francisco to move to the Welsh countryside-to move, in fact, to the little cobblestone village of Hay-on-Wye, the 'Town of Books' that boasts fifteen hundress inhabitants-and forty bookstores. Antiquarian bookstores, no less.

Hay's newest citizens accordingly take up residence in a sixteenth-century apartment over a bookstore, meeting the village's large population of misfits and bibliomaniacs by working for world-class eccentric Richard Booth-the self-declared King of Hay, owner of the local castle, and proprietor of the world's largest and most chaotic used book warren. A useless clerk, Paul delights in shifting dusty stacks of books around and sifting them for ancient gems like Robinson Crusoe in Words of One Syllable, Confessions of an Author's Wife, and I Was Hitler's Maid. He also duly fulfills his new duty as a citizen by simultaneously applying to be a Peer in the House of Lords and attempting to buy Sixpence House, a beautiful and neglected old tumbledown pub for sale in the town's center.

Taking readers into a secluded sanctuary for book lovers, and guiding us through the creation of his own book, Sixpence House becomes a meditation on what books means to us, and how their meaning can still resonate long after they have been abandoned by their public. Even as he's writing, the knowledge of where his work will eventually end up-rubbing bindings with the rest of the books that time forgot-is a curious kind of comfort.
[via]
More editions of Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books:
- Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books: ISBN 1582342849 (1-58234-284-9)
  Hardcover, Bloomsbury Publishing
- Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books: ISBN 1582344043 (1-58234-404-3)
  Softcover, Bloomsbury Publishing
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Slightly Chipped : Footnotes in Booklore
by Lawrence Goldstone, Nancy Goldstone

ISBN 0312263953 (0-312-26395-3)
Softcover, St. Martin's Press

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Book summary:
Who would have guessed that an innocent search for an inexpensive edition of War and Peace could lead to an all-consuming obsession? Nancy and Lawrence Goldstone's romance with rare books arose from just such a search and led them to a world they had never encountered before: the world of antiquarian books. They quickly found themselves infatuated with this quaint and curious world, and scoured the East Coast in search of first editions and rare books. This search, and the curious people they met along the way, is chronicled in their book Used and Rare. Their second book, Slightly Chipped, continues this exploration, taking us on tours of book fairs, libraries, and auctions. No longer the wide-eyed innocents, the Goldstones delve a little deeper into the book world: they explore facets such as fine printing and literary movements, pour over Bram Stoker's notes for Dracula, and puzzle over the incredible markup of hypermoderns. (Never heard of hypermoderns? They are collectible books recently published. A first edition of Sue Grafton's A Is for Alibi sold for $1,250 in 1998. Better check your shelves.)
Both the avid bibliophile and the casual reader will find things to enjoy in Slightly Chipped. For the collector, the Goldstones' discussion of the Internet's impact on collecting is illuminating, and their look at the hypermodern market is positively eye-opening. Plus, visits to such places as the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia and the Pequot Library in Connecticut will get any bibliophile's salivary glands going. For the casual reader, Slightly Chipped is as warm and engaging as Used and Rare; although the Goldstones have become sophisticated book collectors, there is still plenty of the ingenuous surprise and delight that made Used and Rare such a joy to read. They balance out the serious aspects of book collecting with a liberal peppering of literary anecdotes, ranging from William Morris's tyrannical leadership of the Kelmscott Press to the sexual proclivities of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group, keeping the tone light and the pace lively. All this packed into one volume makes Slightly Chipped a rare treat for book lovers of all types. --Perry Atterberry [via]
More editions of Slightly Chipped : Footnotes in Booklore:
- Slightly Chipped : Footnotes in Booklore: ISBN 0312263953 (0-312-26395-3)
  Softcover, St. Martin's Press
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Slightly Chipped: Footnotes in Booklore
by Nancy Goldstone, Lawrence Goldstone

ISBN 0312205872 (0-312-20587-2)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr

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Book summary:
Who would have guessed that an innocent search for an inexpensive edition of War and Peace could lead to an all-consuming obsession? Nancy and Lawrence Goldstone's romance with rare books arose from just such a search and led them to a world they had never encountered before: the world of antiquarian books. They quickly found themselves infatuated with this quaint and curious world, and scoured the East Coast in search of first editions and rare books. This search, and the curious people they met along the way, is chronicled in their book Used and Rare. Their second book, Slightly Chipped, continues this exploration, taking us on tours of book fairs, libraries, and auctions. No longer the wide-eyed innocents, the Goldstones delve a little deeper into the book world: they explore facets such as fine printing and literary movements, pour over Bram Stoker's notes for Dracula, and puzzle over the incredible markup of hypermoderns. (Never heard of hypermoderns? They are collectible books recently published. A first edition of Sue Grafton's A Is for Alibi sold for $1,250 in 1998. Better check your shelves.)
Both the avid bibliophile and the casual reader will find things to enjoy in Slightly Chipped. For the collector, the Goldstones' discussion of the Internet's impact on collecting is illuminating, and their look at the hypermodern market is positively eye-opening. Plus, visits to such places as the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia and the Pequot Library in Connecticut will get any bibliophile's salivary glands going. For the casual reader, Slightly Chipped is as warm and engaging as Used and Rare; although the Goldstones have become sophisticated book collectors, there is still plenty of the ingenuous surprise and delight that made Used and Rare such a joy to read. They balance out the serious aspects of book collecting with a liberal peppering of literary anecdotes, ranging from William Morris's tyrannical leadership of the Kelmscott Press to the sexual proclivities of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group, keeping the tone light and the pace lively. All this packed into one volume makes Slightly Chipped a rare treat for book lovers of all types. --Perry Atterberry [via]
More editions of Slightly Chipped: Footnotes in Booklore:
- Slightly Chipped: Footnotes in Booklore: ISBN 0312205872 (0-312-20587-2)
  Hardcover, St Martins Pr
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The Smithsonian Book of Books
by Michael Olmert

ISBN 089599030X (0-89599-030-X)
Hardcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
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:
- The Smithsonian Book of Books: ISBN 0517147254 (0-517-14725-4)
  Hardcover, Random House Value Pub
- The Smithsonian Book of Books: ISBN 089599030X (0-89599-030-X)
  Hardcover, Harpercollins
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So Many Books, So Little Time
by Sara Nelson

ISBN 0425198197 (0-425-19819-7)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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Book summary:
Sometimes subtle, sometimes striking, the interplay between our lives and our books is the subject of this unique memoir by well-known publishing correspondent and self-described "readaholic" Sara Nelson. From Solzhenitsyn to Laura Zigman, Catherine M. to Captain Underpants, the result is a personal chronicle of insight, wit, and enough infectious enthusiasm to make a passionate reader out of anybody. [via]
More editions of So Many Books, So Little Time:
- So Many Books, So Little Time: ISBN 0425198197 (0-425-19819-7)
  Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading
by Sara Nelson

ISBN 0399150838 (0-399-15083-8)
Hardcover, Putnam Pub Group

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Book summary:
The well-known publishing correspondent and self-described "readaholic" chronicles a year spent reading-and the surprises it brought.

In early 2002, Sara Nelson-editor, reporter, reviewer, mother, daughter, wife, and compulsive reader-set out to chronicle a year's worth of reading, to explore how the world of books and words intermingled with children, marriage, friends, and the rest of the "real" world. She had a system all set up: fifty-two weeks, fifty-two books . . . and it all fell apart the first week. That's when she discovered that books chose her as much as she chose them, and the rewards and frustrations they brought were nothing she could plan for: "In reading, as in life, even if you know what you're doing, you really kind of don't."

From Solzhenitsyn to Laura Zigman, Catherine M. to Captain Underpants, this is the captivating result. It is a personal memoir filled with wit, charm, insight, infectious enthusiasm-and observations on everything from Public Books (the ones we pretend we're reading), lending trauma and the idiosyncrasies of sex scenes ("The mingling of bodies and emotions and fluids is one thing. But reading about it: now that's personal") to revenge books, hype, the stresses of recommendation (What does it mean when someone you like hates the book you love?), the odd reasons we pick up a book in the first place, and how to put it down if we don't like it ("The literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah, the moment at which you look at yourself and announce: Today I am an adult."). Throughout, So Many Books, So Little Time is pure delight-a work at once funny, wise, and rueful: enough to make a passionate reader out of anybody. [via]
More editions of So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading:
- So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading: ISBN 0399150838 (0-399-15083-8)
  Hardcover, Putnam Pub Group
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A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World
by Nicholas A. Basbanes

ISBN 0060580801 (0-06-058080-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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Book summary:
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:
- A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World: ISBN 0060082879 (0-06-008287-9)
  Hardcover, Harpercollins
- A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World: ISBN 0060580801 (0-06-058080-1)
  Softcover, Harpercollins
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Used and Rare : Travels in the Book World
by Lawrence Goldstone, Nancy Goldstone

ISBN 0312156820 (0-312-15682-0)
Hardcover, St. Martin's Press

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Book summary:
After years of competitive extravagance at birthday time, Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone decided to limit themselves to $20 each, which is how they came to be in possession of a $10 definitive translation of War and Peace, complete with maps of the major battles and fold-out color illustrations. It is also how they eventually came to be the owners of a $650 edition of Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit. Used and Rare, the Goldstones' tale of the journey from point A to point B, is a joyful celebration of their love of books. Rare-book dealers are a quirky lot; while one might invite you to caress an Adventures of Tom Sawyer worth thousands, another might turn you away altogether for no apparent reason. The Goldstones' enthusiasm is infectious, and, besides offering a lesson in used-book parlance, the pair remind us that for every book there are at least two stories: the one between the covers, and the one beyond the covers. [via]
More editions of Used and Rare : Travels in the Book World:
- Used and Rare : Travels in the Book World: ISBN 0312156820 (0-312-15682-0)
  Hardcover, St. Martin's Press
Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World
by Nancy Goldstone, Lawrence Goldstone

ISBN 0312187688 (0-312-18768-8)
Softcover, Griffin

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More editions of Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World:
- Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World: ISBN 0312187688 (0-312-18768-8)
  Softcover, Griffin
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The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World
by Luciano Canfora, Martin Ryle

ISBN 0520073045 (0-520-07304-5)
Hardcover, Univ of California Pr

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Book summary:
The Library of Alexandria, one of the wonders of the Ancient World, has haunted Western culture for over 2,000 years. The Ptolemaic kings of Egypt--successors of Alexander the Great--had a staggering ambition: to house all of the books ever written under one roof, and the story of the universal library and its destruction still has the power to move us.
But what was the library, and where was it? Did it exist at all? Contemporary descriptions are vague and contradictory. The fate of the precious books themselves is a subject of endless speculation.
Canfora resolves these puzzles in one of the most unusual books of classical history ever written. He recreates the world of Egypt and the Greeks in brief chapters that marry the craft of the novelist and the discipline of the historian. Anecdotes, conversations, and reconstructions give The Vanished Library the compulsion of an exotic tale, yet Canfora bases all of them on historical and literary sources, which he discusses with great panache. As the chilling conclusion to this elegant piece of historical detective work he establishes who burned the books.
This volume has benefited from the collegial support of The Wake Forest University Studium.
[via]
More editions of The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World:
- The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World: ISBN 0520073045 (0-520-07304-5)
  Hardcover, Univ of California Pr
Warmly Inscribed : The New England Forger and Other Book Tales
by Lawrence Goldstone, Nancy Goldstone

ISBN 0312304285 (0-312-30428-5)
Softcover, St. Martin's Press

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More editions of Warmly Inscribed : The New England Forger and Other Book Tales:
- Warmly Inscribed : The New England Forger and Other Book Tales: ISBN 0312304285 (0-312-30428-5)
  Softcover, St. Martin's Press
Warmly Inscribed: The New England Forger and Other Book Tales
by Nancy Goldstone, Lawrence Goldstone

ISBN 031226268X (0-312-26268-X)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr

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More editions of Warmly Inscribed: The New England Forger and Other Book Tales:
- Warmly Inscribed: The New England Forger and Other Book Tales: ISBN 031226268X (0-312-26268-X)
  Hardcover, St Martins Pr
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The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop
by Lewis Buzbee

ISBN 1555974503 (1-55597-450-3)
Hardcover, Graywolf Press

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Book summary:
"I cannot remember when I read a book with such delight." --Paul Yamazaki, City Lights Bookstore

November, a dark, rainy Tuesday, late afternoon. This is my ideal time to be in a bookstore. The shortened light of the afternoon and the idleness and hush of the hour gather everything close, the shelves and the books and the few other customers who graze head-bent in the narrow aisles. I've come to find a book.

In The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, Buzbee, a former bookseller and sales representative, celebrates the unique experience of the bookstore--the smell and touch of books, getting lost in the deep canyons of shelves, and the silent community of readers. He shares his passion for books, which began with ordering through The Weekly Reader in grade school. Interwoven throughout is a
fascinating historical account of the bookseller's trade--from the great Alexandria library with an estimated one million papyrus scrolls to Sylvia Beach's famous Paris bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, which led to the extraordinary effort to publish and sell James Joyce's Ulysses during the 1920s.

Rich with anecdotes, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop is the perfect choice for those who relish the enduring pleasures of spending an afternoon finding just the right book.
[via]
More editions of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop:
- The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: ISBN 1555974503 (1-55597-450-3)
  Hardcover, Graywolf Press

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