This one
surprised me. The first book, The Prince of Ravens, is one of many free
downloads that I stuffed onto my Kindle. This one engaged me like few others. I
think Hal Emerson put something addictive
in this book because I was compelled to download and pay for the sequels. I’m
munching them down like potato chips. Maybe more like a spicy sweet potato soup
because there’s definitely something nourishing for the mind in these books.
I’d not
heard of this Henry James book until recently. I’ve just begun reading it, and
already, some elements of it remind me of what A.S. Byatt did in Possession. Possibly, that’s just a reflection of my own
tendency to imagine that I’ve discovered connections and resonances. Books do speak to each other, though, and if you read very carefully, you can eavesdrop
on their conversations.
This book can lead you to
believe that the writer is eavesdropping on your life. I love the way that Allie Brosh not
only sees clearly but also sees what’s funny about everything, especially
painful things. I prescribe this book for myself whenever I feel like a unique
and precious flower subject to injustice. This book wakes me up.
For some of us who are owned by our book collections, reading is how we slip into unreality or at least an alternative to our reality. When we come up for air, there are those among us who promptly add the book’s minute details to our Good Reads, LibraryThing, or blog site catalog or who seek out someone who’ll natter on with us about how fabulous the book is.
I do it all the time. Yet I must admit it seems it bit strange.
Like many other bibliophiles, I am an obsessive fiction reader because I enjoy immersion in another life, another place, another time. This is what the best works of fiction do, whether they’re in the literary, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, or romance genres. It’s an out-of-body experience that blots out external sensation. Few other activities can approach that level of pleasure.
Seeking that experience is a way of the bibliophile.
By contrast, nothing seems more earthbound than the work of ruthlessly recording detailed book data in a catalog. Nothing squeezes the juicy joy from a book faster than an extensive discussion of the details of a book with someone whose point of view is at an awkward angle to yours. It’s just too easy to encounter some miserable soul who misread the book.
Still, we can’t quit the cataloging and book discussion community. This, too, is a way of the bibliophile.
So why are cataloging and community so important to me and to some other bibliophiles? Are we like dragons atop a hoard, relentlessly accumulating books and longing to show off our golden collections? Are we more like addicts who get an emotional or intellectual high from engaging with a well-told tale, who suffer from withdrawal when there’s no more story to inhale, and who search for new ways to get a fix that approximates the experience of the first reading of a good book?
reading about reading
Researchers and writers have spilled a lot of ink on the impulses and obsessions of bibliophiles.
- My favorite analysis of the way of the bibliophile appears in research by Kauffman and Libby, describing reading as “experience-taking,” a beneficial merging of ourselves with fictional characters.
- In Hooked and Booked, a psychologist identifies behavior that rises disturbingly above bibliophilia, into the pathological and criminal. I love the words, if not the behavior: bibliomania, bibliokleptomania (so not necessary; that’s what libraries are for), bibliophagy (paper is not so yummy), and bibliotaphy (not as gruesome as some activities).
- In Thinking Sociologically about Twilight, a religious studies professor compares the experience of communing with others who enjoy a book and the experience of Durkheim’s collective effervescence. It sounds like it’s all about bibliophiles concurrently sharing their thoughts and actions and thus creating an upward spiral of group excitement and transcendence. Oh my.
- In Fantods, a fan makes a few accurate observations about the characteristics and behavior of online book fans. The discussion is specific to David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon fans, but I recognize the behavior in other online bibliophile communities.
history of an unrepentant bibliophile
Psychology and sociology aside, there are, of course, practical reasons to engage in the way of the bibliophile. Discussing a book can enhance your comprehension of and appreciation for a book. Cataloging books is essential if you sell books or if you need documentation for insurance coverage. These are valid reasons and, for me, they are merely excuses.
Those reasons did not move me when I created my first book catalog. I was a child of the eighties, which was before software made such things simple. I spent two weeks filling spiral bound notebooks with a list of my book titles and authors. I then created my barely used lending list, to keep track of who had my books. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I had my books. The lending list saw little use, and nobody but me ever looked at my book catalog. I tried to change that by forcing my favorite books into the hands of others. On the rare occasion that a friend surrendered and read the book, my elation was punctured by the reader not loving the book with as much intensity as I did.
What did I learn from these experiences? Nothing. To this day, I gleefully add new purchases to my LibraryThing catalog. I browbeat friends and family into at least trying this great new book I found. I am not swayed by no one looking at my lovely list of books or by readers who don’t delight in the book I asked them to read.
Why? It’s because I am a bibliophile, and that is my way. I bet it’s yours, too.
