Bookpedia : Library : Genre : [Global:Letter]

ISBN: 9780979949104

ListPrice: $27.95

Edition: First Edition

Dimensions: 0.90 x 9.10 x 6.10 in

Summary: Editions and Impressions: Twenty Years on the Book Beat brings together the best of Mr. Basbanes s book journalism. He reports first-hand on a nascent library springing up on the battlefield in Iraq. He describes putting hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line at a New York auction on behalf of a friend and placing bids that, in some instances, exceeded his annual salary. In Sweden, he writes about a seventeenth-century palace library left unfinished when builders walked off the job three centuries ago. He recalls meeting with one of the most prolific book thieves of the twentieth century, and considers instances of the tragic destruction of books and libraries. Mr. Basbanes often says that he is a collector of collectors, and this book also brings together many profiles of fascinating rare-book aficionados, from the extremely wealthy who can buy almost anything they want to collectors who have built marvelous and important collections on limited budgets. Most of the pieces in Editions & Impressions are significantly revised and expanded from their original appearances in print, and throughout the book, Mr. Basbanes has added notes to bring the stories up-to-date. These essays, collected from two decades worth of magazine and newspaper appearances, establish Mr. Basbanes as one of the leading book journalists of our time.

ISBN: 0060593237

ListPrice: $29.95

Edition: First Edition

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".

ISBN: 0805074414

ListPrice: $15.00

Edition: Second Edition

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.

ISBN: 0812931130

ListPrice: $16.95

Edition: Revised

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 Christopher 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."

ISBN: 0060514469

ListPrice: $19.95

Edition: Reprint

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."

ISBN: 0312317263

ListPrice: 14.95

Edition: Reprint

Summary: From Publishers Weekly As he stooped over a basket full of stuffed animals at a London flea market, Baxter (Robert de Niro; George Lucas) made a discovery that would change his life forever. It was there, in 1978, that he unearthed a children's book by Graham Greene, called The Little Horse Bus, selling for five pence. He snatched it up, then impulsively purchased another Greene novel and one of Greene's African journals as well. Just like that, a book collector was born. Baxter chronicles his growing obsession with books in a way that's utterly infectious, with sharp wit and self-deprecating humor. He flits across Australia, England, the United States and France in pursuit of the perfect collection, always spurred on by the knowledge that book collectors find treasures in the most unlikely places. In his words, "acquiring [books] meant midnight assignations in seedy corners of London, white-knuckle bidding at auctions, speculative drives across England to cities you'd never seen, and nervous knocking on the doors of strangers that, in all probability, would leave you, a minute later, humiliated and empty-handed on the doorstep a hundred miles from home." He takes gleeful pleasure in underpaying those who are ignorant about the worth of their rare books, but he also holds certain texts sacred (like the uncorrected proofs of two James Bond novels given to him by Kingsley Amis). Baxter's memoir will be of great interest to serious book collectors because so much of the book conveys the insider's perspective, but his narrative is truly amusing and rollicking enough to entice book lovers of all kinds. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Booklist There is no small charm to a tale that begins where Baxter grew up, in Middle-of-Nowhere, Australia, and ends in the Paris penthouse above where Sylvia Beach once lived. Bibliographer, biographer, broadcaster, and obsessive book collector, Baxter has lived in London and Los Angeles, married three times, and can't resist a story or a list (the book ends with, among other things, what various folk would take with them if their book collections were afire). Baxter collected Graham Greene (he's quite vibrant on this obsession and its resolution) and reveals that Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy fame is one of the new breed of celebrity book collectors. A passion for film (he's written about Spielberg and Kubrick and DeNiro) and a working knowledge of collectible pornography are further nuggets in this sprawling, unedited, but quite engaging memoir. GraceAnne DeCandido Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.  See all Editorial Reviews

ISBN: 0312187688

ListPrice: 12.95

Edition: First Edition

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. The Goldstones are expatriate urbanites who fled jobs on Wall Street to live and write in the Berkshires. With a sense of adventure and fresh beginnings, they relate how they revived their life together and discovered the wonders of old books. Soon they were visiting used and rare book shops and auctions in the remote towns in the region, as well as in Boston, New York, and even as far away as Chicago. Along the way, the reader learns about the lore and minutiae of old books. As the authors... Journey into the world of book collecting with the Goldstones-rediscover the joy of reading, laugh, and fall in love with books all over again. The idea that books had stories associated with them that had nothing to do with the stories inside them was new to us. We had always valued the history, the world of ideas contained between the covers of a book or, as in the case of The Night Visitor, some special personal significance. Now, for the first time, we began to appreciate that there was a history and a world of ideas embodied by the books themselves.

ISBN: 0312263953

ListPrice: 12.95

Edition: First Edition

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 Having introduced a friend to the pricey pleasures of book collecting, the GoldstonesAnovelists and book collectors whose bibliomaniacal exploits were first chronicled in Used and Rare (1998)Astumble on a copy of the Virginia Woolf-Lytton Strachey letters and find themselves in a polite standoff: "you take it," say the Goldstones; "no, no, you saw it first," says the friend. Seeing an opening, the acquisitive urge wins out over politesse, and the Goldstones, to their friend's chagrin, find... More than a sequel, Slightly Chipped: Footnotes in Booklore is a companion piece for Used and Rare. A delight for the general reader and book collector alike, it details the Goldstones' further explorations into the curious world of book collecting. In Slightly Chipped, they get hooked on the correspondence and couplings of Bloomsbury; they track down Bram Stoker's earliest notes for Dracula; and they are introduced to hyper-moderns. Slightly Chipped is filled with all of the anecdotes and esoterica about the world of book collecting that charmed readers of Used and Rare.

ISBN: 0060082879

ListPrice: 29.95

Edition: First Edition

Summary: The final volume in an acclaimed trilogy for bibliophiles (after A Gentle Madness and Patience & Fortitude) focuses on efforts to preserve books and other printed matter from the ravages of deterioration, destruction and obsolescence. The historical range here is expansive, encompassing texts by classical authors known today only through secondhand descriptions, William Blake's self-published illustrated volumes and used book sales at modern libraries. Even the most ancillary data have the power to fascinate: who knew, for example, that the Roman emperor Claudius was also probably the last scholar fluent in the language of the ancient Etruscans? But the research skills Basbanes displays are matched by the lively quality of his interviews, like an extended conversation with a Sarajevo librarian who saved thousands of Croatian volumes from the Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign. Other chapters, which describe how American libraries are regularly pruned of old books by less violent means, owe a heavy (and acknowledged) debt to Nicholson Baker's Double Fold, with minor updates to recap new trends in preservation. A final section elaborates on the potential threat of the e-book, but remains optimistic that love of the physical act of reading will enable the printed page to prevail. Even those who find the evidence unconvincing should find themselves compelled by story after story on the salvation of books. Basbanes's longtime fans will rejoice at more of the same, while new readers will no doubt be swiftly caught up in the book-loving spirit. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. Basbanes' trilogy about the book world, whose earlier titles were A Gentle Madness (1995), concerning book collectors, and Patience and Fortitude (2001), about libraries, culminates in this eclectic ramble through the perpetual problem of preservation. Fiscal and physical limitations exacerbate the problem of determining which materials to save for posterity, while the malicious destruction of books and documents continues, as Basbanes lamentably recounts in the Khmer Rouge's obliteration of... 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 Prize–winning 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.

ISBN: 0805061762

ListPrice: 20.00

Edition: 1st Owl books ed

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. In Part 1 of this informative and well-written work, syndicated book columnist Basbanes explores the history of book collecting from antiquity to the 1940s. This ground has been covered before, but Basbanes retells his story well; and, as the extensive notes and bibliography show, he has done his homework. Part 2 portrays the state of collecting in the 1980s, using a series of sketches of notable figures in the field. The material here derives from extensive interviews and therefore provides... The passion to possess books has never been more widespread than it is today; indeed, obsessive book collecting remains the only hobby to have a disease named after it. A Gentle Madness, finalist for the 1995 National Book Critics Circle award, is an adventure among the afflicted. Richly anecdotal and fully documented, it combines the perspective of historical research with the immediacy of investigative journalism. Above all, it is a celebration of books and the people who have revered, gathered, and preserved them over the centuries.

ISBN: 1582342849

ListPrice: 23.95

Edition: First Edition

Summary: Hay-on-Wye, a Welsh town of 1,500, is heaven on earth for people who love books, especially old books. It has 40 bookstores, and if you can't find what you want in one of them, you can fork over 50 pence and visit the field behind the town castle, where thousands more long-forgotten books languish under a sprawling tarp. McSweeney's contributor Collins moved his wife and baby son from San Francisco to Hay a few years ago, intending to settle there. This book is Collins's account of the brief period when he organized American literature in one of the many used-book stores, contemplated and abandoned the idea of becoming a peer in the House of Lords, tried to buy an affordable house that wasn't falling apart (a problem when most of the buildings are at least a century old) and revised his first book (Banvard's Folly). Collins can be quite funny, and he pads his sophomore effort with obscure but amusing trivia (how many book lovers know that the same substance used to thicken fast-food milk shakes is an essential ingredient in paper resizing?), but it's hard to imagine anyone beyond bibliophiles and fellow Hay-lovers finding enough here to hold their attention. Witty and droll though he may be, Collins fails to give his slice-of-life story the magic it needs to transcend the genre. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. The McSweeney's gang may be the closest thing we have to a genuine literary circle; if its members have produced smug, postmodern chapter titles, such as "Chapter Two relies on the travelogue cliche of a garrulous cabdriver," they've also written some books that whistle like fresh air through the bookstore. Collins' travelogue/memoir is a book lover's delight, minus the pretense you might expect from someone schooled in obscure eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature. With his wife and... 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.