The Book Lovers' Anthology compiled by the Bodleian Library, Oxford

I came across a most unusual book.  It had no author, editor, or translator, but it did have notes and an index of nearly 30 pages.  The Book Lovers’ Anthology found its way to publication when compiled by the Bodliean Library at the University of Oxford.  So we have no plot, no pictures, no characters – except for the thoughts and fancies of many noteworthy literary figures dating back to the ancient Greeks.  Therefore, all I can do is offer some tempting tidbits to make you smile, laugh, and occasionally groan.

In a letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey wrote, “Talk of the happiness of getting a great prize in the lottery!  What is that to opening a box of books!  The joy upon lifting up the cover must be something like what we shall feel when Peter the Porter opens the doors upstairs, and says, ‘Please do walk in, sir.’  That I shall never be paid for my time and labour according to the current value of time and labour, is tolerably certain;  but if anyone should offer me £10,000 to forgo that labour, I should bid him and his money go to the devil, for twice the sum could not purchase me half the enjoyment.  It will be a great delight to me in the next world, to take a fly and visit these old worthies, who are my only society here, and to tell them what excellent company I found them here at the lakes of Cumberland, two centuries after they had been dead and turned to dust.  In plain truth, I exist more among the dead than the living, and think more about them, and, perhaps, feel more about them” (4).

Not all the contributors are well-known.  C.C. Colton, and English Vicar, wrote, “We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit” (6).  From this side of the pond, Washington Irving wrote in his Sketch Book, “The scholar only knows how dear these silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity” (9).  Ralph Waldo Emerson notes, “It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books.  They impress us with the conviction that one nature wrote, and the same reads.  We read the verses of one of the great English poets, of Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joy – with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their verses.  There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had wellnigh thought and said” (26).

Bodleian Library, Oxford, England

Robert Lowe, Lord Sherbrooke spoke at the Croyden Science and Art Schools in 1869.  He exhorted the students to, “Cultivate above all things a taste for reading.  There is no pleasure so cheap, so innocent, and so remunerative as the real, hearty pleasure and taste for reading.  It does not come to everyone naturally.  Some people take to it naturally, and others do not, but I advise you to cultivate it, and endeavor to promote it in your minds.  In order to do that, you should read what amuses you and pleases you.  You should not begin with difficult works, because, if you do, you find the pursuit dry and tiresome.  I would even say to you, read novels, read frivolous books, read anything that will amuse you and give you a taste for reading” (35).  I have given this exact same advice to my students, who – in increasing numbers – do not read. 

So thank you Emerson, and Voltaire, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Samuel Johnson, Shakespeare, Dickens, Swift, Laurence Sterne, Milton, Tennyson, Thackery, and many dozens more.  The Book Lovers’ Anthology: A Compendium of Writing about Books, Readers & Libraries compiled by the Bodliean Library in Oxford, England should not be read like a novel.  Browse through and zero in on a favorite writer.  Open the volume to random pages and find all the wonders and delights of reading and books you share with these giants of literature.  5 stars.

--Chiron, 5/10/15

Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books by Wendy Lesser

Every once in a while, I come across a book about reading.  Recently, I reviewed Rebecca Mead’s My Life in Middlemarch about reading George Eliot’s classic Victorian novel.  Francine Prose wrote, Reading Like a Writer for another example.  Now Wendy lesser has added to this collection with Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books.

According to the dust jacket, “Wendy Lesser is the founder of The Threepenny Review, [an outstanding literary magazine].  She is the author of eight previous books of nonfiction and one novel.  She won a prize for Music for Silenced Voices: Shostokovich and His Fifteen Quartets.  She has written for The New York Times Book Review, and my favorite The Times [London] Literary Supplement. 

Lesser divides the book into convenient categories including, “Character and Plot,” “Novelty,” Authority,” “Grandeur and Intimacy,” and the intriguing “Inconclusions.”  However my favorite proved to be the “Afterword: The Book as Physical Object.”

Her style is chatty and actually fun.  She opens her prologue with, “It’s not a question I can completely answer.  There are abundant reasons, some of them worse that others and many of them mutually contradictory.  To pass the time.  To savor the existence of time.  To escape from myself in someone else’s words.  To exercise my critical capacities.  To flee from the need for rational explanations” (3).  Although I have never given it much thought, these are all reasons I read.

When I was about 6 or 7, I was already an avid reader.  I wanted more of what my mother would share with me before I lay me down to sleep each night.  One day, I asked my Dad where he learned all the things he did.  Is one word answer, “Books” hooked me and raised me from avid to voracious.

When Lesser starts a new book, she tells us, “”I open the cover and sniff the pages before I even start to read.  I always think the smell of that paper goes with its feel, the tangible sensation of a thick, textured, easily turnable page on which the embedded black print looks as if it could be felt with a fingertip, even when it can’t” (188). 

She also brings the interesting idea spatial aspect of a printed book.  She writes, “someone who remembers specific passages in the spatial way I do – as in ‘I think it was on the left-hand side of the page, not more than two or three pages before a chapter break” – becomes lost in the amorphous, ever-varying sea of the digital page” (189).  She mentions the conveniences of tablets and e-readers.

When she finishes a book, she holds “the pleasant weight of the closed book for a moment in my hands, as if to bid its story a silent goodbye, and then I turned it over” (204). 

Wendy Lesser and I are kindred spirits.  We both have the same devotion to the printed page in all aspects: vision, touch, smell, and, of course memory.  Get a copy of Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books and explore in detail your love of reading.

--Chiron, 6/16/14

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

When it comes to literary fiction, I have four preferences: novels about books, novels set in bookstores, novels about English Professors, and novels from Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.  The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin encompasses all these elements. 

According to her website, “Gabrielle Zevin’s writing career began at 14 years of age when an angry letter to her local newspaper about a Guns ‘n’ Roses concert resulted in a job as a music critic.  She has published several novels for adults and young people, and she has written about female soldiers in Iraq, mafia princesses in a retro-future New York City, teenage girls in the afterlife, talking dogs, amnesiacs, and the difficulties of loving one person over many years.  Her first novel, Elsewhere, has been translated into over 20 languages. She is also the screenwriter of the cult hit Conversations with Other Women.  Fikry is her eighth novel, published in April of 2014.

A.J. Fikry suffers from the devastation of losing his wife in a tragic car accident, and seems to be slowly spiraling into alcoholism.  He half-heartedly runs “Island Books,” where he emphasizes literary fiction, and refuses to carry books he doesn’t like – even if they are popular best sellers.  One day, Amelia Loman, the book rep from Knightley Press makes the first call of her new job to Island Books.  A.J. has ignored the emails, because he did not recognize the name, so Amelia’s visit comes as a surprise.  He treats her rudely, and she leaves discouraged, but not before leaving A.J. with a galley of an old novel, which she loves.  Shortly after her visit, three things happen which change the course of A.J.’s life: he regrets his rudeness to Amelia, his prized possession a first edition of the extremely rare book of poems by Edgar Allen Poe, Tamerlane  is stolen, and someone abandons a toddler in the store.  A.J. begins bonding with the child, and when the body of a young woman washes up on the shore a few days later, the police discover the baby, now named Maya, is her child.  A.J. adopts the child, and his interest in life and the bookstore are reinvigorated.

One of the things I love about this book is the easy conversational manner of the prose.  I felt as if I had begun an extended conversation about novels and writing.  A.J.’s personal preference in reading involves short stories, and each chapter begins with a brief note about a story he enjoys.  Why he does this becomes clear in the end.

Gabrielle Zevin and friend

Maya quickly develops a love of reading.  Zevin writes, “The first way Maya approaches a book is to smell it.  She strips the book of its jacket, then holds it up to her face and wraps the boards around her ears.  Books typically smell like Daddy’s soap, grass, the sea, the kitchen table, and cheese” (82).  I have been a book smeller for a long, long time.

Maya becomes a rebellious teen, but she loves her dad, and books, and writing.  Late in the novel, Maya and A.J. have a conversation.  He says, “‘Maya, there is only one word that matters […] We are what we love. […] We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read.  We are, for as long as we are here, only love.  The things we loved.  The people we loved” (251).

Wise words, from a wise man.  The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, is a delightful read, thoroughly enjoyable, and a perfect book for a long Saturday afternoon.  5 stars.

--Chiron, 5/7/14

Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

One of the delights of belonging to a book club comes from reading books which might never have come across my radar.  Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan has become the latest in a long list of wonderful reads suggested by my friends and colleagues.

Robin Sloan’s first novel was enthusiastically recommended by one of the regular members of my club.  Because of teaching responsibilities, I did not sit down to read this novel until a bare 72 hours before the meeting.  After I had only reached page nine, I knew I would love this novel.

The author’s note in the book has only a single sentence: “Robert Sloan grew up in Michigan and now splits his time between San Francisco and the Internet.”

Clay Jannon designs websites for a bagel company, but the great recession of 2008 intervenes, and the company goes under.  He has no luck finding a job, until one day he happens to pass Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, which has a “help wanted” sign in the window.  Nearing desperation, he enters to inquire about the job.  He immediately discovers that he has not entered an ordinary book store.  The shelves, which line the walls, go up 30 feet.  A tall, soft spoken, skinny man emerges, and asks, “What do you seek in these shelves?” (8).  He responds, “I am looking for a job” (9).  When Clay admits he has no bookstore experience, Mr. Penumbra says, “Tell me about a book you love.” // “it’s not one book, but a series.  It’s not the best writing and it’s probably too long and the ending is terrible, but I’ve read it three times, and I met my best friend because we were both obsessed with it back in sixth grade.” // “I love The Dragon-Song Chronicles” (9). 

Clay gets the job, and begins to understand exactly how unusual this bookstore really is.  First of all, he rarely has more than one customer a week, and he or she never buys anything.  The customers return a large book, wrapped in brown paper, and ask for another.  Clay checks the computer catalog for the shelf number, takes the customer’s account number, climbs the ladder, retrieves the book, which he wraps in brown paper, and the customer leaves with another book. 

Mr. Penumbra has warned Clay not to look at the books, so this already provides enough mystery for a whole sack of detective stories.  To while aware the night, Clay plays with his laptop and begins making a digital map of the store.  He discovers a peculiar pattern in the books returned and taken.  He meets a young woman, Kat, who works for Google, and Clay shares the details of the bookstore with her.

The mystery takes Clay, Kat, and Neel – Clay’s 6^th grade best friend – to New York to the main library and headquarters of the company which owns Mr. Penumbra’s.  The library is presided over by strange men, known as readers, who dress in robes reminiscent of medieval monks.  This library contains books similar to the ones at Mr. Penumbra’s.

This only scratches the surface of the story, so I urge you to track down a copy of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, and immediately begin reading.  This intelligent, informative, funny, exciting, interesting, and most difficult to close for the night novel is a must read.  5 stars.

--Chiron, 3/27/14