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Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World
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.
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.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
About the author
Nicholas A. Basbanes
26 books158 followersNicholas A. Basbanes is an award-winning investigative journalist and was literary editor of the Worcester Sunday Telegram. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and Smithsonian, and he is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. Basbanes lives in North Grafton, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
April 4, 2018
*****3.5*****
I loved most of this book. It's about the power that books have to inspire us and change our lives, that people who do important things, impressive or not, have been lovers of books. People like Hitler and Helen Keller and Thomas Edison and John Quincy Adams all loved to read, and they all talked about the influence that books had on their lives. If they were writers too, the books they read can tell a collective story. If they wrote in their books, their marginalia tells a story. I really enjoyed the connections between famous people, whether I knew them or not, and the books they read. Books are important to me, so I enjoyed seeing how and why they're important to others.
The reasons I didn't give this four full stars are three-fold. One, Basbanes is a name-dropper, which is really annoying. He'll say something like, "Harold Bloom has said this before, and he said it to me when I interviewed him." Basbanes wrote the book, so it should be obvious that when he quotes people, it's because he interviewed them. There's no need to mention all the time that he spoke directly to people. It's like he has an insecurity that people won't believe him or just needs to talk up his own importance in the literary/scholarly world. Two, Basbanes is an elitist. Almost every single person he directly interviewed wrote for The New York Times Magazine or The New Yorker and had degrees from Ivy League schools. Seriously, the only people he interviewed who didn't go to Harvard, Yale, or Columbia were the people he wrote about in the last chapter, and they were doctors at Boston Medical.
Third, and it gets its own paragraph because it's the worst one, Basbanes sided with Harold Bloom in the debate over whether books should be chosen in college curriculums for pure aesthetic value only, meaning that books should not be chosen for diversity of authors, meaning that the books we all read in school should be the books that have been read and recognized for decades. Essentially, Harold Bloom didn't like the fact that, in the seventies and eighties, the Modern Language Association among other groups wanted to represent the diversity of contemporary college students by including books outside of the Canon. Bloom even left Yale University because it bothered him that choosing texts for teaching purposes had become "political." Now, this whole chapter did spark a PowerPoint entitled "Aesthetics and Politics" through which I taught my English 102 (literature and writing) students about the debate and #ownvoices to see what they thought about this whole thing. But aside from that positive angle, which inspired some really good responses from them, this chapter just frustrated me. I even sent photos of pages to my friend who also teaches college English, and she was frustrated as well. My issue is that it's not political to want literature at the college level to do more than please people. Calling something "political" has just become a way to insult people whose views are different than yours. I want literature to be fun and entertaining but also to educate. I don't have to like a book to appreciate its value, and, in fact, I didn't like every book I read as an undergraduate and graduate student of literature, but I did learn from each of them. And I'm so glad that my college was just coming out of the need to teach the Canon, that I read books by diverse authors from diverse backgrounds. I read literature from LBGT authors, black and white, Hispanic authors, men, women, etc., and that's important. It not only gives students authors to relate to, but it also teaches students about other types of people, other cultures, and other histories. And isn't that what a degree in literature is supposed to do? If all I can tell you after receiving my Master's is that I read a lot of books that I liked and could do a close reading of any Shakespeare or Hemingway passage, then my degree is worth nothing. That's what Bloom wants, and that's what Basbanes agrees with, and I can't get behind that. That chapter bothered me so much that I had to stop reading it and finish it another day.
I forgave Basbanes and everything, and we ended on good terms, but I won't forget that argument we had.
My dad and I read this book together. He liked it, but I kept stopping to ask if he minded reading it. It's a book lover's book--if you don't love books as much as you love to read, it might not please you. It's anecdotal, and Basbane writes in long, needlessly complicated sentences, so it can take some plodding through. But it's also enlightening and entertaining. It gave me insight into people I'd heard about before in unexpected ways since it comes from a different angle. Despite the above rant, I do recommend this book to book lovers. You might agree with Bloom and Basbanes, anyway--some of my students did.
I loved most of this book. It's about the power that books have to inspire us and change our lives, that people who do important things, impressive or not, have been lovers of books. People like Hitler and Helen Keller and Thomas Edison and John Quincy Adams all loved to read, and they all talked about the influence that books had on their lives. If they were writers too, the books they read can tell a collective story. If they wrote in their books, their marginalia tells a story. I really enjoyed the connections between famous people, whether I knew them or not, and the books they read. Books are important to me, so I enjoyed seeing how and why they're important to others.
The reasons I didn't give this four full stars are three-fold. One, Basbanes is a name-dropper, which is really annoying. He'll say something like, "Harold Bloom has said this before, and he said it to me when I interviewed him." Basbanes wrote the book, so it should be obvious that when he quotes people, it's because he interviewed them. There's no need to mention all the time that he spoke directly to people. It's like he has an insecurity that people won't believe him or just needs to talk up his own importance in the literary/scholarly world. Two, Basbanes is an elitist. Almost every single person he directly interviewed wrote for The New York Times Magazine or The New Yorker and had degrees from Ivy League schools. Seriously, the only people he interviewed who didn't go to Harvard, Yale, or Columbia were the people he wrote about in the last chapter, and they were doctors at Boston Medical.
Third, and it gets its own paragraph because it's the worst one, Basbanes sided with Harold Bloom in the debate over whether books should be chosen in college curriculums for pure aesthetic value only, meaning that books should not be chosen for diversity of authors, meaning that the books we all read in school should be the books that have been read and recognized for decades. Essentially, Harold Bloom didn't like the fact that, in the seventies and eighties, the Modern Language Association among other groups wanted to represent the diversity of contemporary college students by including books outside of the Canon. Bloom even left Yale University because it bothered him that choosing texts for teaching purposes had become "political." Now, this whole chapter did spark a PowerPoint entitled "Aesthetics and Politics" through which I taught my English 102 (literature and writing) students about the debate and #ownvoices to see what they thought about this whole thing. But aside from that positive angle, which inspired some really good responses from them, this chapter just frustrated me. I even sent photos of pages to my friend who also teaches college English, and she was frustrated as well. My issue is that it's not political to want literature at the college level to do more than please people. Calling something "political" has just become a way to insult people whose views are different than yours. I want literature to be fun and entertaining but also to educate. I don't have to like a book to appreciate its value, and, in fact, I didn't like every book I read as an undergraduate and graduate student of literature, but I did learn from each of them. And I'm so glad that my college was just coming out of the need to teach the Canon, that I read books by diverse authors from diverse backgrounds. I read literature from LBGT authors, black and white, Hispanic authors, men, women, etc., and that's important. It not only gives students authors to relate to, but it also teaches students about other types of people, other cultures, and other histories. And isn't that what a degree in literature is supposed to do? If all I can tell you after receiving my Master's is that I read a lot of books that I liked and could do a close reading of any Shakespeare or Hemingway passage, then my degree is worth nothing. That's what Bloom wants, and that's what Basbanes agrees with, and I can't get behind that. That chapter bothered me so much that I had to stop reading it and finish it another day.
I forgave Basbanes and everything, and we ended on good terms, but I won't forget that argument we had.
My dad and I read this book together. He liked it, but I kept stopping to ask if he minded reading it. It's a book lover's book--if you don't love books as much as you love to read, it might not please you. It's anecdotal, and Basbane writes in long, needlessly complicated sentences, so it can take some plodding through. But it's also enlightening and entertaining. It gave me insight into people I'd heard about before in unexpected ways since it comes from a different angle. Despite the above rant, I do recommend this book to book lovers. You might agree with Bloom and Basbanes, anyway--some of my students did.
April 29, 2009
When you read this one be prepared to add another 1000 tbr's.
Read
September 30, 2011This is a book-lover’s dream. Or dream dictionary, to be more technically correct about it. This has always been in my “Currently Reading” pile—whenever I am plagued with that terrible hiccup I’ve dubbed Bibliophilic Purgatory, I skim the pages of this book, picking out choice anecdotes, lingering over highlighted quotations and images. It’s a book crammed with information and trivia about books, writers of books, collectors of books, readers of books, lovers of books. It made me giddy. In some cases, it had me thinking, Hey, I’m doing something awesome with my life.
Let us skip hand-in-hand through the chapters of this wonderful book—those most memorable to me, of course. [That’s how much I adore it—I’ll talk about it at the risk of boring you to tears with my inane rambling! Wahoo!] [Re the details, corrections from those who have read this are always welcome! :p]
1. The Magic Door. A chapter on general book-loving. Basbanes gives us [tear-jerking] stories of bibliophiles—most of them displaying the lifelong attachment of people to books. One is about the woman who wrote to May Lamberton Becker (who penned a column called “Readers Guide” for New York Evening Post, among others), asking, “May I ask you to tell me of a few books that you have loved, that have made you sit up and just shout with delight? I am going to buy a four new books this winter…” Imagine stretching your budget to accommodate your love of reading—and even that having only enough for four choice ones. And then there’s the story of A. David Schwartz, owner of Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, who took his time among the shelves of his stores, looking for that “good book to die with.” All of the stories are amazing.
3. Eye of the Beholder. A chapter that deals with the whole business of talking about books—on what “good” books are, what their “true value” is, on censorship. We’re given a run-through of the whole Shakespeare-Bowdler hooplah, as well as a profile of and interview with Harold Bloom [who makes many appearances in this book]. Here’s one of the quotes I went away with from this chapter (I couldn’t agree more with it):
"I learned early on that when people share their reading habits with you, what they are really granting is privileged access to their deepest interests and predilections, even their dreams, needs, and anxieties." (p.47)
5. In the Margins. No doubt my favorite chapter—it gives us a concise survey of the history of marginalia among notable personalities, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge at the forefront [Trivia Alert! Coleridge is “credited with bringin the word ‘marginalia’ into English usage from the Latin to describe his habitual process of writing in books.” (p.91)] It’s also the chapter that has to be blamed for the fact that I now scribble on the pages of my books. Basbanes just makes it sound awesome and historic to write on one’s books, haha. Basbanes quotes Heather Jackson, a professor at the University of Toronto who has studied the phenomena of marginalia:
“One of the most intriguing qualities of marginalia, the attitude of defiance in which they are often produced,” an altogether “elusive but important quality” of the practice. (p.93)
11. The Healing Art. Among the topics found in this chapter: 1) Where we get our love of reading—one Robert Coles relates how he grew up with bibliophiles for parents, parents who taught him the love of reading, where no book was too daunting, parents who read to each other every night; and 2) How vital books are to our lives, [if we let them]. Robert Coles talks about one Walker Percy, a Southern writer, in a way that, I suppose, applies to anyone who loves books:
“Through novels he found kindred spirits, writers who could conjure up this world, help him to understand his won world, and also make him feel less lonely, because when you read, you are in the company of another person. The other person’s words and thoughts become part of yours, and connect with you, and reading is a kind of human connection. It’s an embrace of another person’s thoughts, ideas, suggestions, premises, worries, concerns—the whole list of nouns is what I think reading enables, and prompts in a person. We are the creature of language, and through language we affirm ourselves, we find out about the world, including ourselves, through words, and we share with one another through language.” (p.263)
It’s a well-researched book, yet the language is never stilted, never boring—you can take in so much information without feeling nauseated by all of it. I suppose it’s because Basbanes’ prose is easy to follow, fluid, as fascinated by the wonders of books. And I can feel how Basbanes himself is afflicted with this “gentle madness” of bibliophilia—this is not a disaffected survey of literature and the manias associated with it. Basbanes loves what he is doing—there’s no doubt about that.
So. What does it mean to love books? [Answer: It means awesome.] How does one love books? [Answer: Awesomely.] It’s a dork-out read for sure. But it’s a book that allows you to dork-out with pride. [That is a great catchphrase, if I say so myself, haha.] Darn it, but I love this book.
Let us skip hand-in-hand through the chapters of this wonderful book—those most memorable to me, of course. [That’s how much I adore it—I’ll talk about it at the risk of boring you to tears with my inane rambling! Wahoo!] [Re the details, corrections from those who have read this are always welcome! :p]
1. The Magic Door. A chapter on general book-loving. Basbanes gives us [tear-jerking] stories of bibliophiles—most of them displaying the lifelong attachment of people to books. One is about the woman who wrote to May Lamberton Becker (who penned a column called “Readers Guide” for New York Evening Post, among others), asking, “May I ask you to tell me of a few books that you have loved, that have made you sit up and just shout with delight? I am going to buy a four new books this winter…” Imagine stretching your budget to accommodate your love of reading—and even that having only enough for four choice ones. And then there’s the story of A. David Schwartz, owner of Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, who took his time among the shelves of his stores, looking for that “good book to die with.” All of the stories are amazing.
3. Eye of the Beholder. A chapter that deals with the whole business of talking about books—on what “good” books are, what their “true value” is, on censorship. We’re given a run-through of the whole Shakespeare-Bowdler hooplah, as well as a profile of and interview with Harold Bloom [who makes many appearances in this book]. Here’s one of the quotes I went away with from this chapter (I couldn’t agree more with it):
"I learned early on that when people share their reading habits with you, what they are really granting is privileged access to their deepest interests and predilections, even their dreams, needs, and anxieties." (p.47)
5. In the Margins. No doubt my favorite chapter—it gives us a concise survey of the history of marginalia among notable personalities, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge at the forefront [Trivia Alert! Coleridge is “credited with bringin the word ‘marginalia’ into English usage from the Latin to describe his habitual process of writing in books.” (p.91)] It’s also the chapter that has to be blamed for the fact that I now scribble on the pages of my books. Basbanes just makes it sound awesome and historic to write on one’s books, haha. Basbanes quotes Heather Jackson, a professor at the University of Toronto who has studied the phenomena of marginalia:
“One of the most intriguing qualities of marginalia, the attitude of defiance in which they are often produced,” an altogether “elusive but important quality” of the practice. (p.93)
11. The Healing Art. Among the topics found in this chapter: 1) Where we get our love of reading—one Robert Coles relates how he grew up with bibliophiles for parents, parents who taught him the love of reading, where no book was too daunting, parents who read to each other every night; and 2) How vital books are to our lives, [if we let them]. Robert Coles talks about one Walker Percy, a Southern writer, in a way that, I suppose, applies to anyone who loves books:
“Through novels he found kindred spirits, writers who could conjure up this world, help him to understand his won world, and also make him feel less lonely, because when you read, you are in the company of another person. The other person’s words and thoughts become part of yours, and connect with you, and reading is a kind of human connection. It’s an embrace of another person’s thoughts, ideas, suggestions, premises, worries, concerns—the whole list of nouns is what I think reading enables, and prompts in a person. We are the creature of language, and through language we affirm ourselves, we find out about the world, including ourselves, through words, and we share with one another through language.” (p.263)
It’s a well-researched book, yet the language is never stilted, never boring—you can take in so much information without feeling nauseated by all of it. I suppose it’s because Basbanes’ prose is easy to follow, fluid, as fascinated by the wonders of books. And I can feel how Basbanes himself is afflicted with this “gentle madness” of bibliophilia—this is not a disaffected survey of literature and the manias associated with it. Basbanes loves what he is doing—there’s no doubt about that.
So. What does it mean to love books? [Answer: It means awesome.] How does one love books? [Answer: Awesomely.] It’s a dork-out read for sure. But it’s a book that allows you to dork-out with pride. [That is a great catchphrase, if I say so myself, haha.] Darn it, but I love this book.
December 4, 2023
I bought this book by mistake. I had it on my wishlist in an online bookstore and messed up when moving items to the basket. When I noticed the mistake, I had already checked out and then I decided not to ask for the purchase to be cancelled. And I’m glad I didn’t, because this was an overall nice read.
Although mainly focused on the US and the UK, the book still contains very interesting information, e.g. about the way books were perceived along history.
In 1932, the British author Holbrook Jackson devoted an engaging study to this concept (that books are considered dangerous by some people, because they make you think), and used a word, «bibliophobia», to describe the many ways that people have expressed their fear of books over the centuries, in some instances condemning them to incineration, but most spectacularly, perhaps, in 213 BC, when the Chinese prime minister and senior historiographer, Li Ssu, « set out to abolish the past and start history afresh » by ordering every book in the empire « except works of agriculture, medicine and divination » to be destroyed. « Those who refused to give up their books for destruction were branded and condemned to slavery on the Great Wall for four years »
… and the ways books were used by and influenced the lives and work of people as notable as Thomas Edison, James Joyce among many others
When Joyce wrote Finnegans Wake, he said, you know, I spent seventeen years writing this novel, and I expect somebody to spend an equivalent time reading it. Somebody who writes a novel cares about every sentence. But the only reader who ever reads a novel and looks ate every sentence, how it’s constructed and what it means and why it’s there, is the translator. Nobody ever reads as closely as a translator does.
It has put into words something I had noticed long ago but had not given much thought about:
One of the great mysteries of art is that the original somehow retains its freshness over decades and even over centuries, that we return to it and read it with great pleasure and great joy. Translations, by contrast, age very quickly. If you don’t have a new translation every twenty years, the translation is dated in a way that somehow the original text seems to be able to avoid.
This book also renewed my resolution to finally read the Bible, in preparation to later on try Moby Dick and Joyce’s Ulisses (wish me luck;) :
Most readers of the Bible fail to engage these texts as literature and history, a circumstance that the historian of religion Donald Harman Akenson has found unfortunate. « To a remarkable degree, the scriptures tell us how to read the scriptures, although these self-contained instructions are now out of fashion among biblical scholars, » he wrote. « The Hebrew Bible is a book of puns, of irony, and the occasional joke, and these, while not the heart of the text, are like a set of stage directions : read the solemn part solemnly, but know also that almost every word can have a second or third meaning and that word-play is the analgesic we have been given to keep the heavy parts of the scriptures from becoming more of a load that we can bear . »
Although mainly focused on the US and the UK, the book still contains very interesting information, e.g. about the way books were perceived along history.
In 1932, the British author Holbrook Jackson devoted an engaging study to this concept (that books are considered dangerous by some people, because they make you think), and used a word, «bibliophobia», to describe the many ways that people have expressed their fear of books over the centuries, in some instances condemning them to incineration, but most spectacularly, perhaps, in 213 BC, when the Chinese prime minister and senior historiographer, Li Ssu, « set out to abolish the past and start history afresh » by ordering every book in the empire « except works of agriculture, medicine and divination » to be destroyed. « Those who refused to give up their books for destruction were branded and condemned to slavery on the Great Wall for four years »
… and the ways books were used by and influenced the lives and work of people as notable as Thomas Edison, James Joyce among many others
When Joyce wrote Finnegans Wake, he said, you know, I spent seventeen years writing this novel, and I expect somebody to spend an equivalent time reading it. Somebody who writes a novel cares about every sentence. But the only reader who ever reads a novel and looks ate every sentence, how it’s constructed and what it means and why it’s there, is the translator. Nobody ever reads as closely as a translator does.
It has put into words something I had noticed long ago but had not given much thought about:
One of the great mysteries of art is that the original somehow retains its freshness over decades and even over centuries, that we return to it and read it with great pleasure and great joy. Translations, by contrast, age very quickly. If you don’t have a new translation every twenty years, the translation is dated in a way that somehow the original text seems to be able to avoid.
This book also renewed my resolution to finally read the Bible, in preparation to later on try Moby Dick and Joyce’s Ulisses (wish me luck;) :
Most readers of the Bible fail to engage these texts as literature and history, a circumstance that the historian of religion Donald Harman Akenson has found unfortunate. « To a remarkable degree, the scriptures tell us how to read the scriptures, although these self-contained instructions are now out of fashion among biblical scholars, » he wrote. « The Hebrew Bible is a book of puns, of irony, and the occasional joke, and these, while not the heart of the text, are like a set of stage directions : read the solemn part solemnly, but know also that almost every word can have a second or third meaning and that word-play is the analgesic we have been given to keep the heavy parts of the scriptures from becoming more of a load that we can bear . »
January 30, 2022
“Every Book Its Reader” by Nicholas Basbanes is a celebration of the written word. Inspired by a collection at the British museum, Basbanes poses the question- “what are YOU reading?” Taking a close look at the bookshelves of influential people such as Winston Churchill, Helen Keller, Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Adolf Hilter (to name a few), Basbanes reveals what their chosen literature says about them, and how it could have influenced their monumental decisions.
I was intrigued by the personal libraries of the influential people Basbanes discusses, but the book itself was wordy and difficult to digest. Full of fancy, academic language, it was necessary for me to have a dictionary nearby when reading. Basbanes interviews other bibliophiles for their views and opinions, most of them being educated academics, so some of the novel itself was dry and thick. There was some historical information in “Reader” that was intriguing (such as the history of ‘banned books’)but some of it less so, and the chapters were very long, so less interesting parts dragged on.
“Reader” seemed more about Brasbanes and the “popular book people” he knew than about the world of reading itself. Constantly name-dropping, Brasbanes insisted the reader know every person he had spoken to (most of them seemed relevant and important to Brasbanes, however I had not heard of them) when gathering his research for his book, and a lot of the personal interviews were catalogued within the pages (and this did not really contribute to the story at all).
The concept is a great one, and for book lovers, Basbanes intricately details how reading has literally “changed the world”. I loved the passion Basbanes and his subjects had for the written word, and definitely felt a kinship with them right away. I wanted more information on the books read, by who and why, and less on Basbanes academic friends and thick language.
I was intrigued by the personal libraries of the influential people Basbanes discusses, but the book itself was wordy and difficult to digest. Full of fancy, academic language, it was necessary for me to have a dictionary nearby when reading. Basbanes interviews other bibliophiles for their views and opinions, most of them being educated academics, so some of the novel itself was dry and thick. There was some historical information in “Reader” that was intriguing (such as the history of ‘banned books’)but some of it less so, and the chapters were very long, so less interesting parts dragged on.
“Reader” seemed more about Brasbanes and the “popular book people” he knew than about the world of reading itself. Constantly name-dropping, Brasbanes insisted the reader know every person he had spoken to (most of them seemed relevant and important to Brasbanes, however I had not heard of them) when gathering his research for his book, and a lot of the personal interviews were catalogued within the pages (and this did not really contribute to the story at all).
The concept is a great one, and for book lovers, Basbanes intricately details how reading has literally “changed the world”. I loved the passion Basbanes and his subjects had for the written word, and definitely felt a kinship with them right away. I wanted more information on the books read, by who and why, and less on Basbanes academic friends and thick language.
June 2, 2021
Well if you ever needed an excuse to keep reading and reading this book would provide plenty of them. A book about books, writers and readers, what could be more appealing to a bibliophile? Accounts of the influential and important books, libraries, and the men and women who wrote them and created them abound and it is enlightening. If anything, it may whet your appetite for reading better literature and several new reading projects are percolating for me as a result. Especially want to read 'The Life of Johnson' by James Boswell which I have passed up several times at used book fairs due to its daunting thickness. Harold Bloom late of Yale University who wrote numerous books and was widely acknowledged as one of the preeminent book critics of the late 20th century considered Samuel Johnson one of the great readers of all time. Bloom, who also earns considerable space in this book is notable as well for his astounding ability to read--fast! According to the author, Bloom managed upward of 1,000 pages per hour, more than 15 pages per minute! Other books I apparently must read are 'Don Quixote', the rest of Shakespeare, and both 'The Illiad' and 'The Odyssey' and 'The Aeneid'. There are numerous interesting interviews in this book with outstanding writers (David McCullough), translators (Robert Fagles), special library curators and book critics (Bloom and others). Read on!
January 19, 2012
A seemingly fascinating topic (judging a person by the books he/she has in their "library") made a bit tedious by Basbanes tendency to write in a stream-of-consciousness style.
June 29, 2008
I picked this up on a whim at the Harvard Book Store sometime early last spring when I was feeling like I wasn't reading enough grown-up books. I read the first half and really enjoyed it, but then got distracted by some other book that needed to be read. I picked it up again when I needed something to read while I waited for the next group of requests from the library. I picked up where I left off a year ago, and slipped right back into it.
I particularly enjoyed the first few chapters, which discussed some of the earliest known literature and how our relationship to it changes over time. I made a lot of notes in the margins about the correlations to my own ideas about the cultural history of fairy tales.
This book made me even more aware of the gaping holes in my knowledge of literature. I wasn't an English major in college because I didn't want to have to read all those Dead White Males (and after reading chapter 10, I have a better understanding of where that came from), but now I realize how much I've missed out on. Of course, it would take most of a lifetime to get caught up, but I may have to try to tackle one each summer, or something like that.
I was really, genuinely sad when I reached the last chapter, and I wanted to immediately start it over again. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in cultural studies or the history of literature.
I particularly enjoyed the first few chapters, which discussed some of the earliest known literature and how our relationship to it changes over time. I made a lot of notes in the margins about the correlations to my own ideas about the cultural history of fairy tales.
This book made me even more aware of the gaping holes in my knowledge of literature. I wasn't an English major in college because I didn't want to have to read all those Dead White Males (and after reading chapter 10, I have a better understanding of where that came from), but now I realize how much I've missed out on. Of course, it would take most of a lifetime to get caught up, but I may have to try to tackle one each summer, or something like that.
I was really, genuinely sad when I reached the last chapter, and I wanted to immediately start it over again. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in cultural studies or the history of literature.
December 29, 2012
Depending upon your reading style, you will find this book captivating or boring. For me it was captivating and exciting. I loved it! I am enthralled with books as history-makers in themselves, and that is exactly what this book is about. You will learn how books influenced America's founding fathers, Thomas Edison, Malcolm X. You will learn the effect that books have upon six month old children. You will discover the importance of the book collections that belonged to famous writers, politicians and others who changed history. You will learn about marginalia, the jottings of people in the margins of books, and how those notes can be sometimes more important that the books written by those jotters. You will explore our sacred books and learn interesting history about them. You will learn about amazing literate people who do nothing but read and critique and how they do it. This book caused me to add probably a dozen titles to my personal list of books I would like to read someday. I may re-read this one again in the future It is jam-packed with information and inspiration.
April 21, 2008
Since I am a reading freak, I am always enthralled by Nicholas Basbanes books about bibliophilia, bibliomania, book collectors of all ilk, and lost libraries. In this book, he enters the realm of famous readers who have left commentary in the margins of the books they read. He discusses the keeping of commonplace books and interviews well-known readers of today, including David McCullough and Harold Bloom.
It is a fascinating book. However, I could not give the book five stars because he does such a terrifically bad job discussing the Mormon literary market. It would have been far better had he not mentioned anything about Mormons at all. As it is, he did an excessively half-baked job of describing the Mormon publishing world. He simply missed out on an expansively thriving publishing industry. I have contemplated writing a letter to him, since he is one of my favorite authors in every other regard.
It is a fascinating book. However, I could not give the book five stars because he does such a terrifically bad job discussing the Mormon literary market. It would have been far better had he not mentioned anything about Mormons at all. As it is, he did an excessively half-baked job of describing the Mormon publishing world. He simply missed out on an expansively thriving publishing industry. I have contemplated writing a letter to him, since he is one of my favorite authors in every other regard.
June 6, 2009
I really enjoyed this book at first but lost steam towards the end. The last few chapters especially. One of my favorite anecdotes from the book was a story where Abigail Adams learned that her son, John Quincy Adams, was getting a little full of himself. She quickly wrote him a letter that contained the following:
"If you are so conscious to yourself that you possess more knowledge upon some subjects than others of your standing, reflect that you have had greater opportunities of seeing the world, and obtaining knowledge of mankind than any of your contemporaries. That you have never wanted a book but it has been supplied to you, that your whole time has been spent in the company of men of literature and science. How unpardonable would it have been in you to have been a blockhead." (pg 136)
"If you are so conscious to yourself that you possess more knowledge upon some subjects than others of your standing, reflect that you have had greater opportunities of seeing the world, and obtaining knowledge of mankind than any of your contemporaries. That you have never wanted a book but it has been supplied to you, that your whole time has been spent in the company of men of literature and science. How unpardonable would it have been in you to have been a blockhead." (pg 136)
February 4, 2011
I enjoyed this book, even though at times it feels like forced lists of books that important folks read.
Most interesting were bits on Marginalia, the Unabomber (See Chuck Klosterman's "Eating the Dinosaur for a further treatment of this topic that is definitely interesting), Translation (Godel Escher Bach alert!), and a continuing compendium of "books to read" woven throughout the 316 pages.
This is a great book if you like to read about reading. If you like to comb books for other books to read. If you like to understand what books are and how they affect the world. Basbanes is an, at worst, competent writer who is passionate about his topic. He writes clearly, but this isn't a narrative. It is more like a patchwork quilt than a tapestry.
If I were rating it on reading it alone, it would be a 3star. But this is a metabook. It gets 4 because it points the way to more.
Most interesting were bits on Marginalia, the Unabomber (See Chuck Klosterman's "Eating the Dinosaur for a further treatment of this topic that is definitely interesting), Translation (Godel Escher Bach alert!), and a continuing compendium of "books to read" woven throughout the 316 pages.
This is a great book if you like to read about reading. If you like to comb books for other books to read. If you like to understand what books are and how they affect the world. Basbanes is an, at worst, competent writer who is passionate about his topic. He writes clearly, but this isn't a narrative. It is more like a patchwork quilt than a tapestry.
If I were rating it on reading it alone, it would be a 3star. But this is a metabook. It gets 4 because it points the way to more.
August 3, 2015
I know what you're thinking - how do you give two stars and a DNF to a book that you add to your list of "best non-fiction"? Well, I'll tell you.
This is an interesting book. An important book for book lovers. A book chock-full of educational, thoughtful and challenging information about books and their importance to the world. That said, it is also a book that, at times, reads more like a text-book than anything else, and not in a good way.
I didn't so much not finish this book, as put it away for a future time when I am feeling like I have the time and intellectual gravitas to properly appreciate the content in this book. Or to put it another way - the "it's not you; it's me" literary edition!
I feel certain I will go back and finish this at some point, but I'm not focused enough right now to properly appreciate it's intellectual heft.
This is an interesting book. An important book for book lovers. A book chock-full of educational, thoughtful and challenging information about books and their importance to the world. That said, it is also a book that, at times, reads more like a text-book than anything else, and not in a good way.
I didn't so much not finish this book, as put it away for a future time when I am feeling like I have the time and intellectual gravitas to properly appreciate the content in this book. Or to put it another way - the "it's not you; it's me" literary edition!
I feel certain I will go back and finish this at some point, but I'm not focused enough right now to properly appreciate it's intellectual heft.
October 16, 2007
For my first book here at good reads, it's appropriate that it's this one. I have read the author's previous books & have found him interesting. This book was no exception. It deals with such topics such as what famous authors had in their own libraries, notes written in books and other topics relating to books and reading.
March 28, 2008
I don't remember much about this book except it made me want to keep at my project of reading the classics that I hadn't even started yet since I was still at the stage of reading about reading the classics. And I found good quotes for my new commonplace book.
October 2, 2016
There were moments when Basbanes lost me (and one particular Bloom-filled section that riled me up) but this is an extraordinary book about books and their readers. Basbanes is a devoted and passionate bibliophile and this book is a celebration of that obsession in himself and others. I get it.
January 8, 2008
I was a little disappointed. Basbanes has written several in this series, and I thought the first, A Gentle Madness was the best.
August 11, 2008
A little dry.
Read
September 17, 2008This was an interesting concept for a book, but way to dense for me.
November 19, 2008
Well written but I found the topic rather dull.
January 6, 2010
A book about reading books. What could be better than that?
Currently reading
February 1, 2010The book person's book person.
August 25, 2011
Fascinating information on books and people to whom books are important.
January 11, 2013
This is fun to flip through, but he can get bogged down in boring details. Also, I found it annoying that so many "best" lists contained only male names/writers. It gets old.
December 24, 2023
Summary: A celebration of those who compiled book lists and made recommendations, the impact of books on various individuals, and the reading lives of famous individuals.
For bibliophiles, Nicholas A. Basbanes is a godsend. He has published at least five books about books and those who are dedicated readers and collectors. I’ve previously reviewed A Gentle Madness, Basbanes celebration of book collectors. This, I believe has a wider appeal. The premise of this work is to explore the impact books have had on their readers and he takes us on a fascinating tour of the lives and libraries of the famous.
He begins with the history of those who recommend books and it was delightful to find that Bob on Books follows a long and honorable tradition. We learn of the great popularity of May Lamberton Becker and her “Readers Guide” columns of the late 1800’s, spanning a wide array of interests. Most delightful is the story of a rural reader with limited access to books asking for books that “had made her [Becker] sit up at night” that she could order by mail order. Becker sent her a package of books that arrived after she’d had surgery for a terminal condition. She wrote back, “With books I slip out of my life and am with the choicest company.”
Basbanes discusses the various attempts to compile lists of “greatest books,” a literary canon, including the efforts of Anita Silvey, who has read over 125,000 children’s books and compiled a list of 100 best books for children. We learn of the efforts of the Lilly Library to identify and collect the books people will be reading in 300 years.
Much of the book is concerned with famous readers and how they interacted with their books. We learn of “the silent witneeses,” the notes Henry James jotted in his books. Basbanes goes on with this theme in a whole chapter on “Marginalia,” the notes readers jot in the margins of their books–a horror to librarians and a trove of information for those studying the history of reading.
We’re introduced to David McCullough, an ardent reader who tells the story of Nathaniel Greene and Henry Knox, brilliant Revolutionary war leaders who learned strategy and tactics from books! We learn how Lincoln, Adams, and others carried books with them wherever they went. Basbanes traces the artistry of translators. He chronicles the biblical scholarship of Elaine Pagels. He introduces us to the child psychologist Robert Coles, a former literature major who came to recognize the power of stories for children and the rest of us. We meet Daniel Aaron, the man responsible for my bookcase full of Library of America volumes, doing for American writers what other series have done for Europeans. We visit the libraries of Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers, inventors nourished by their reading.
The book concludes by featuring the Changing Lives Through Literature program, and the transformative influence books have had on the lives of the imprisoned. (Sadly, access to literature for prisoners is being curbed in many states.) What Basbanes does throughout is explore the significance of books on our lives. Reading him both confirms my own deep sense of the value of reading and inspires me to grow as a reader, to truly attend to what I read.
For bibliophiles, Nicholas A. Basbanes is a godsend. He has published at least five books about books and those who are dedicated readers and collectors. I’ve previously reviewed A Gentle Madness, Basbanes celebration of book collectors. This, I believe has a wider appeal. The premise of this work is to explore the impact books have had on their readers and he takes us on a fascinating tour of the lives and libraries of the famous.
He begins with the history of those who recommend books and it was delightful to find that Bob on Books follows a long and honorable tradition. We learn of the great popularity of May Lamberton Becker and her “Readers Guide” columns of the late 1800’s, spanning a wide array of interests. Most delightful is the story of a rural reader with limited access to books asking for books that “had made her [Becker] sit up at night” that she could order by mail order. Becker sent her a package of books that arrived after she’d had surgery for a terminal condition. She wrote back, “With books I slip out of my life and am with the choicest company.”
Basbanes discusses the various attempts to compile lists of “greatest books,” a literary canon, including the efforts of Anita Silvey, who has read over 125,000 children’s books and compiled a list of 100 best books for children. We learn of the efforts of the Lilly Library to identify and collect the books people will be reading in 300 years.
Much of the book is concerned with famous readers and how they interacted with their books. We learn of “the silent witneeses,” the notes Henry James jotted in his books. Basbanes goes on with this theme in a whole chapter on “Marginalia,” the notes readers jot in the margins of their books–a horror to librarians and a trove of information for those studying the history of reading.
We’re introduced to David McCullough, an ardent reader who tells the story of Nathaniel Greene and Henry Knox, brilliant Revolutionary war leaders who learned strategy and tactics from books! We learn how Lincoln, Adams, and others carried books with them wherever they went. Basbanes traces the artistry of translators. He chronicles the biblical scholarship of Elaine Pagels. He introduces us to the child psychologist Robert Coles, a former literature major who came to recognize the power of stories for children and the rest of us. We meet Daniel Aaron, the man responsible for my bookcase full of Library of America volumes, doing for American writers what other series have done for Europeans. We visit the libraries of Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers, inventors nourished by their reading.
The book concludes by featuring the Changing Lives Through Literature program, and the transformative influence books have had on the lives of the imprisoned. (Sadly, access to literature for prisoners is being curbed in many states.) What Basbanes does throughout is explore the significance of books on our lives. Reading him both confirms my own deep sense of the value of reading and inspires me to grow as a reader, to truly attend to what I read.
Read
October 29, 2020I would have to rate each chapter of this book with its own number of stars. Overall I found it extremely fascinating. The basic premise of the book is how much can be learned by looking at what people read and how they interact with it. Many parts stood out to me.
Another concept Coles learned from his parents centered on the power narrative has to shape character. "My mother preached that everyone needs stories they can live by.... She was making a connection between the reader and the moral implications of a story. Are you going to read from an abstract distance not connected to your life, or are you going to read in such a way that what you read informs the way you live?"....."My father once explained to me that what they were doing was drinking from the great reservoirs of wisdom. He told me they felt 'rescued' by these books, and that they read them with enormous gratitude."
Through novels he found kindred spirits, writers who could conjure up this world, help him to understand his own world, and also make him feel less lonely, because when you read, you are in the company of another person. The other person's words and thoughts become part of yours, and connect with you, and reading is a kind of human connection. It's an embrace of another persons thoughts, ideas, suggestions, premises, worries, concerns-the whole list of nouns is what I think reading enables, and prompts in a person.
And then this about Hitler which made me shudder.
... he discovered what he called a Hitler he "had not anticipated," a man betraying what appeared to be a sustained interest in spirituality," with more than 130 books on religious subjects...
As he traced the pencil notations, Ryback concluded that Hitler "was seeking a path to the divine that led to just one place..."Where did Jesus derive the power that has held his followers for all eternity?" Hitler drew a dense line beneath the answer: "Through his absolute identification with God." In another section, "Hitler not only underlined the entire passage but placed a thick vertical line in the margin, and added an exclamation point for good measure.
Another concept Coles learned from his parents centered on the power narrative has to shape character. "My mother preached that everyone needs stories they can live by.... She was making a connection between the reader and the moral implications of a story. Are you going to read from an abstract distance not connected to your life, or are you going to read in such a way that what you read informs the way you live?"....."My father once explained to me that what they were doing was drinking from the great reservoirs of wisdom. He told me they felt 'rescued' by these books, and that they read them with enormous gratitude."
Through novels he found kindred spirits, writers who could conjure up this world, help him to understand his own world, and also make him feel less lonely, because when you read, you are in the company of another person. The other person's words and thoughts become part of yours, and connect with you, and reading is a kind of human connection. It's an embrace of another persons thoughts, ideas, suggestions, premises, worries, concerns-the whole list of nouns is what I think reading enables, and prompts in a person.
And then this about Hitler which made me shudder.
... he discovered what he called a Hitler he "had not anticipated," a man betraying what appeared to be a sustained interest in spirituality," with more than 130 books on religious subjects...
As he traced the pencil notations, Ryback concluded that Hitler "was seeking a path to the divine that led to just one place..."Where did Jesus derive the power that has held his followers for all eternity?" Hitler drew a dense line beneath the answer: "Through his absolute identification with God." In another section, "Hitler not only underlined the entire passage but placed a thick vertical line in the margin, and added an exclamation point for good measure.
September 28, 2022
Quick impressions: Overall, I liked it, but I did not find it terribly memorable. While I marked a few quotes to remember, the book overall is not one that stayed with me. It was like listening to some academic lectures, but the lecturers were not always engaging. Serious bibliophiles and/or fans of the author may like the book better. I'd say this is one to borrow.
(Full review to be available on my blog.)
(Full review to be available on my blog.)
December 31, 2023
Read for eye breaks at work. I remember the content was new, but I didn't stick any book flags in it, and I haven't retained any details. It forced me to look up a lot of things while I was reading it, but they must've either gone into long-term memory or floated away.
June 16, 2017
This book was interesting in places, but for me all the essays went on just a bit too long and they never really went anywhere.
October 12, 2022
I really liked the concept, but the book was a little out of date socially and a little too erudite for my taste.
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