books on books

Review: The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction

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The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Summary: An argument that we should read what we delight in rather than what others think is “good” for us.

Alan Jacobs is not among the prophets of reading doom. He believes we should actually read what we want to rather than following prescribed lists of “great” books that we ought to read. He argues that the most important reason for reading is that it is pleasurable rather than it being “good” for us:

“So this is what I say to my petitioners: for heaven’ sake, don’t turn reading into the intellectual equivalent of eating organic greens, (or shifting the metaphor slightly) some fearfully disciplined appointment with an elliptical trainer of the mind in which you count words or pages the way some people fix their attention on the ‘calories burned’ readout…” (p. 17).

He proposes that we read “at whim,” that is, we read books when we are ready for them. That doesn’t mean we don’t read the great books. It means we don’t read them too soon. He also suggests that when we find works we like and wonder what else to read, that rather than reading books inspired by those books, we read upstream–that is, we read the books that preceded and inspired them. If we liked Tolkien, we should read Beowulf, a recommendation I agree with, especially if it is Seamus Heaney’s rendering! Now a more challenging one is his suggestion that, if we like Jane Austen, we read Hume, as many of her ideas come from him–but only under the sign of Whim.

Jacobs argues that one of the pleasures of reading is responding to the author and he describes the ways readers annotate their works and the value of this (he uses a mechanical pencil for precise underlines and sharpness of notes). Against those who worry that this will slow them down, he challenges the cult of page and book counts, contending that it is what, and not how much we read, that matters. He argues that many books become more boring the faster we read them, and that we ought to allow ourselves time to re-read, because we often miss much in our first readings.

Against those who complain of diminishing attention in an internet age, Jacobs contends that the thing that helped him most was getting a Kindle–it kept him reading, it promoted linearity, and allowed him to concentrate for a long time. Unlike reading on a computer or tablet, there are no notifications and no distractions or temptation to multi-task.

This takes Jacobs into a discussion of attentiveness and he introduces us to Hugh of St. Victor and the counsel of the Didascalion. He advises reading what we can, moving step by step, first cogitating and then meditating on the text, ruminating on it as a ruminant does its food. He contends that we need both the skills of skimming and deep and long attention, depending on the material and our reasons for engaging it.

Against those who want to turn libraries into chat-filled cafes, he argues that silence is often difficult to find, especially for the impoverished, who cannot afford the space. Libraries, or at least reading rooms, can be a place to preserve that. Against the contention that reading is solitary, he observes all the interactive possibilities from our engagement with the author to classrooms to book groups.

He concludes where he began, with the idea of serendip. Very little of our reading journey may be planned, though it may be cultivated, whether through Amazon recommendations, or the discoveries on the shelves of a bookstore or library. While pleasurable reading involves attention and the elimination of distraction, it should not be shaped by the shame or guilt of what one should read.

Like the author, I’ve been tempted at points by reading plans, and still wrestle, as a reviewer, with reading too fast, sometimes robbing myself of the enjoyment of a book. I no longer worry about reading plans, and usually have one book going that I just read for enjoyment. This was one such book, and I would recommend it for any who remember loving books, but for one reason or another struggle to read or get caught up in the tyranny of “should.”

Review: Recovering the Lost Art of Reading

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Recovering the Lost Art of Reading, Leland Ryken and Glenda Faye Mathes. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021.

Summary: An invitation to artful reading, considering its decline, different kinds of literature and how we read them, and the art of reading well to discover goodness, truth, and beauty.

Much has been made over the supposed decline in reading, and contradictory statistics that show a rise in reading (especially during the pandemic). What is evident is that how and what we read has gone through changes. We read more on screens and audio and browse and scroll. There are questions about the loss of the ability to attend to longform writing.

The two authors of this book, one a literature professor, the other a professional writer, and both lovers of literature contend that what may be in decline is artful readers and have written this book to describe what it means to recover this art. They write:

“Reading a book immerses oneself into an extensive work. When this is done receptively and thoughtfully, it becomes artful reading. Some people call it “deep reading” and believe it is in deep trouble” (p. 23).

The authors believe that in our loss of artful or deep reading, we have lost leisure, self transcendence, contact with the past and with essential human experience, edification and an enlarged vision. The writers advocate for participation that both receives and responds to what the author has written, both actively listening (“obeying” in its original sense) and responding. It discerns both one’s own perspective and that of the author. In Dorothy Sayers words, there is the Book as Thought, the Book as Written, and the Book as Read.

Moving on from this introduction to artful reading, the authors consider what literature is in its different kinds. They note with sadness the shift from “literature” to “texts” in contemporary literary studies, but maintain the language of literature, distinguishing it from expository writing as concerned with the concrete rather than the abstract. The axiom of literature is to “show, not tell.” They further describe literature as experiential, concrete, universal, interpretive, and artistic. They defend the importance of literature as a portrayal of human experience, for seeing ideas rightly, and for the enjoyment of beauty. It transports us into imagined worlds, giving us renewed perspective on our own as well as refreshment.

They consider how we read different types of literature: story, poetry, novels, fantasy, children’s books, creative non-fiction and the Bible as a literary work. I so valued their simple instruction for poetry–slow down! In the reading of fantasy, they distinguish between escape and escapism, noting with C.S. Lewis that reading is always an escape, but one that ought give fresh perspective on the human condition. They address how to choose good books for children and the vital importance of reading and talking about books together.

The last part of the book returns to the recovery of the art of reading. Fundamentally, we recover by discovering good books and the good, the true, and the beautiful within them. We discern and assess the truth-claims in a book. We consider the moral perspective of the book–does it make the good or the evil attractive and who is valorized? We notice the use of language to point toward beauty, and the beautiful God. They describe excellence in beginnings, middles and ends.

All of this only makes sense in the context of our reading choices. They encourage us to embrace our freedom to read and observe in very practical terms the time thieves that rob us of precious hours. They consider how we choose good books and the role good literature plays in creativity and in one’s spiritual life.

I think one of the most valuable aspects of this book is the encouragement of leisurely, slow, and reflective engagement with good works, whatever their genre. They help us attend to plot, character, setting, and behind all this, the perspective of the author and the insights we gain into our common human condition. Their invitation to be participants in the work with the author while continuing to discern strikes a good balance.

I would have liked to see some book recommendations for those wanting to recover the art. Certainly, the authors mention books throughout, and the ones mentioned are worthwhile, but some bibliographies might have helped. Also while the authors discuss goodness and evil in literature, they don’t discuss beauty and ugliness, only beauty. The ugliness of the post-nuclear world in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a crucial offset to the beauty of the love of father and son. Sometimes, Christian literature seems too beautiful, in ways trite and artificial. The beauty and the healing comfort of Lothlorien gains its power from the horrors of Moria and the loss of Gandalf.

Those who practice any art always have a sense they could be better at their art. Reading is also an art. This book reminded me of ways I may be ever-improving at that art. I can work to remove the distractions to attentive reading. I may slow down, especially to savor a poem. I may re-read great works. I may attend to the story and the questions it opens up about the universal human condition. I may allow the book to enlarge my perspective if I give myself to it both attentively and discerningly, both open and observant. Ryken and Mathes invite us, whether the neophyte or the seasoned reader, to an ever-growing practice of the art of reading. After all, it is not how much, but how well we read.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: A Gentle Madness

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A Gentle Madness, Nicholas A Basbanes. New York: Henry Holt, 1999.

Summary: An entertaining journey through the history and contemporary world of book collecting, and the “bibliomanes” whose passion for books formed amazing collections.

I think it is obvious that I love books. More precisely, I love reading books and talking about them. I do have a number of books in my home (and have donated or sold large numbers). I am a bibliophile, but not a bibliomane. This is the “gentle madness” Nicholas Basbanes writes about in this thick, delightful book you just don’t want to end because of the interesting stories of bibliomanes. The title comes from a description of Isaiah Thomas as being stricken with “the gentlest of infirmities, bibliomania.”

The most interesting difference between bibliophiles and bibliomanes, is that the former love reading books, while the latter collect them. The collectors usually have some focus in their collecting, from first editions of great books, to everything coming from the hand of a particular author or set of authors. I love finding books at the lowest price. Collectors pay attention to price but will spare no expense for something they want. At the very beginning, we meet a chef and restaurateur, Louis Szathmary, whose collection of cookbooks and artifacts filled sixteen semi-trailers and went to half a dozen institutions. And this is the fascinating part of the story. So often the collecting efforts of individuals accomplished what great libraries could not–forming distinctive collections that eventually enhanced these libraries’ holdings, whether Samuel Pepys, whose holdings went to Cambridge, John Harvard’s library that formed the core of the university named after him or the Huntington Library formed out of the personal collection of Henry Huntington. For that matter, Thomas Jefferson’s substantial library became the core of the Library of Congress.

Basbanes takes us through the fascinating world of booksellers, agents of buyers, and auctions of rare books. We are introduced to the high priced world of incunabula, early printed books, usually those printed before 1501. He describes a sale of Shakespeare’s First Folio, a collection of 36 plays for $2.1 million in 1989 (recently Christie’s auctioned a copy for $10 million). We learn of Ruth Baldwin who collected children’s books, eventually installing this collection at the University of Florida. Then there is Harry Hunt Ransom, who became the driving force behind the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas. Ransom cozied up to Texas politicos awash in funds from the Texas oil industry.

One of the unavoidable realities of collecting was the death (or sometimes the insolvency) of the collector. The efforts and funds to build up a collection then required the organizing, curating, and protecting of these rare resources. Inevitably, the question arises of the disposition of the collection. We learn both about auctions that form the inheritance of future generations, and the intentional donation or sale of libraries to other institutions. In some cases, the donor came along with the library during their life as did Ruth Baldwin who oversaw the installation of her children’s books and continued to curate the collection until shortly before her death.

Perhaps the strangest story is that of the collector who stole rather than bought his collection. Stephen Carrie Blumberg amassed a collection of Americana in his home in Ottumwa, Iowa valued at roughly $20 million. It consisted of stolen materials from libraries from all over the country. His thefts involved everything from stolen or duplicated keys to crawling through ventilation systems. Eventually he was caught. Basbanes interviewed him during his trial, during which he recounted his drive to build “his” collection and how he obtained it.

This book has become something of a “classic” among book lovers. If nothing else, it is comfort to most of us who may be berated for how many books we have. If nothing else, we can point to people even more eccentric than we are. They are each uniquely eccentric, yet also incredibly focused to assemble their collections. We learn about this gentle madness that has existed as long as there were books, and even become acquainted with some through the author’s travels and discussions with them. And since this book is out of print (though listed on Amazon and other sites), you can have a taste of the fun of collecting in finding a copy. If you love books about books and those who collect them, this is a treasure trove for your own collection.

Review: For the Love of Books

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For the Love of Books: Stories of Literary Lives, Banned Books, Author Feuds, Extraordinary Characters, and More, Graham Tarrant. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019.

Summary: A fun read about everything books, from the beginning of the book, stories of authors and their loves and their fights, different genres, and the world of publishing.

Those who love books love reading books on books. This is one of the most enjoyable such books I’ve come across. Graham Tarrant explores everything from the beginnings of the book to the spats that have occurred between authors (e.g. Mark Twain versus Bret Harte, and more recently Norman Mailer versus Gore Vidal). We also hear about their loves–both gay and straight. Tarrant also explores their work habits, and their drinking and drug habits. Writing brilliant works do not make authors sterling characters by any means. Some were criminals. Some, like John Bunyan wrote their greatest works in prison. Jeffrey Archer got his start there.

We learn about the world around books–efforts to ban books, the parallel careers of authors and their characters, the various literary prizes, and the ins and outs of the publishing industry. But the major part of the book are the different genres of books, major works in each and the stories behind them. Tarrant periodically throws in lists of great works in the genre–from novels to crime fiction to memoirs and science fiction.

This latter makes the book a great resource for reading ideas, particularly of classics in a genre we may like. Writing any book is a challenging job with an uncertain outcome. The exploration of the lives of the people who do this is fascinating, and given some of their duels, fights, and other activities, one is amazed that we have what we have. It also leaves us with sadness of how many lives were claimed early, how many books we’ll never see from these authors.

What you have here is not serious literary criticism but more of a romp through the lives and works of literary figures. If you are looking for a lighthearted book that will stock you with trivia about books and their authors, this is the book. Enjoy!

Review: When Books Went to War

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When Books Went to War

When Books Went to War, Molly Guptill Manning. New York: Mariner Books, 2014.

Summary: This history of efforts to supply American servicemen in World War 2 with books.

The war against Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany was not just a war of bullets and armies. It was a war of ideas and books. In 1933, in Berlin’s Bebelplatz, thousands of books were burned. Books by Jews. Books by foreigners. Books that dissented from the views of Mein Kampf. As Nazi armies marched through Europe, they destroyed libraries, and millions of books.

As the United States slowly edged toward war, and then rapidly mobilized after Pearl Harbor, American leaders quickly came to realize that soldiers needed more than barracks and weapons, training and strategy. They needed ideas, and in the many idle hours between intense battles, they needed diversions. They needed books.

President Roosevelt put it well:

People die, but books never die. No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever. No man and no force can take from the world the books that embody man’s eternal fight against tyranny. In this war, we know books are weapons.

Molly Guptill Manning recounts the massive mobilization effort that put over 140 million books into the hands of Americans in the services, and the powerful impact those books had on those who received them.

While libraries existed on posts, those deployed often lacked greatly. The first response was the National Defense Book Campaign, organized by the American Library Association under the leadership of Althea Warren, director of the Los Angeles Public Library. She launched a national book donation drive with a goal of 10 million books. Eventually 18 million were collected in what became the Victory Book Campaign. However, not all the books were suitable for soldiers and most were heavy hardcovers, not idea for someone’s pack or duffle.

Eventually this effort gave way to the American Services Editions, payed for by the military. Cost constraints combined with an effort of mass production of a number of editions led to adopting a paperback format, produced for roughly five cents a book. Each months, sets were sent out to all the service units. They consisted of classics, how to books, modern fiction, history, biography, sports. They were selected with an eye to soldiers interests. They fit in a soldiers pocket and were so popular that they were traded around until they fell apart

Manning recounts how deeply these were appreciated. Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was the all-time favorite, reminding so many soldiers of home. Soldiers could be found reading them on transports and in fox holes, wherever they could find a moments respite. Books weren’t censored for points of view. Some were controversial, like Strange Fruit, an account of interracial marriage, or steamy, like Forever Amber. All of these kept soldiers morale up and reminded them for what they were fighting. Eventually, more books were produced than the Germans destroyed, some by those banned authors. In the end, books not only went to war, they won.

Most fascinating to me was how Manning connects this massive book effort with the massive influx of GIs into colleges after the war, and their seriousness about learning. She raises the question of whether the steady diet of good reading the soldiers experienced during the war (which may not have been true of them before) whet their appetites for serious study that “wrecked the curve” for other undergraduates.

I write this review during “stay at home” orders during a pandemic. This is a very different war. We act collectively by isolating. It will be interesting to see the role books play during this war, when so many other forms of entertainment are available on all our devices. Yet books have a power to form ideas, to capture imagination, to re-fashion our world as we enter that of a book. The stories evoked in my minds eye are always richer than the rendering of another. I know the importance of the idea of relief to those on the edge, but I wonder if for some, the chance to have a collection of new titles delivered each month would be a welcome gift. Should there be an equivalent to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library for adults? Will our “time out” be long enough to foster a lifelong love for this literature?

Perhaps someday, someone will write a book of this time titled When Books Sustained a Nation. One an only hope.

Review: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

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Mr. Penumbra

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan. New York: Picador, 2012.

Summary: When Clay Jannon starts clerking in Mr. Penumbra’s bookstore, he discovers a most unusual bookstore with unusual customers and figures out that the store is part of a far-flung scheme pursuing one of the oldest quests.

Clay Jannon is an out-of-work web developer who happens on a help wanted sign for the late shift at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. He takes the job. He discovers there are two kinds of customers. There are the ordinary customers who buy books in the front of the store in its eclectic and relatively limited selection. As it turns out, there are relatively few of these. Then there is a much more interesting group of members of a secret society, which we later learn is called The Unbroken Spine. They have a card with a number. They return a book and ask for another. A description of the transaction, including the person’s appearance and the book returned and requested are to be logged. No questions asked. No looking in the books. These books are in the back of the store on shelves that tower up several stories and must be reached by ladders. They are the Waybacklist.

Jannon’s curiosity gets the best of him, so he uses programming skills and the advice of geeky friends to create a 3-D visualization of the store, then programs the current log into the visualization. He discovers there is a pattern. About this time a cute girl who works at Google, Kat Potente, happens into the store as a result of a Google ad Clay wrote. She spots his visualization and they start working together to add more to the visualization by “borrowing” another log book. Penumbra happens on him in the store just as the visualization is complete. It is a face, that of Aldus Manutius, a pioneer in type-setting. Jannon has completed a task in hours that it would take other members years or even decades.

This discovery sets an unexpected turn of events into motion. Mr. Penumbra’s store is shut down and he is called to New York to meet “Corvina” who it turns out is head of the secret society of the Unbroken Spine, which has stores (really libraries) all over the world for novices to solve the first part of the quest. It turns out that the ultimate quest is to decode the codex left by Manutius, and those who have significantly progressed are all engaged in this, yet for centuries, no one has done so. It is believed that to decode Manutius will result in immortality for all the members of this secret society.

The plot turns on the conflict between old fashioned scholarly study, and the marvels of Google’s algorithms. Should such new ways even be employed? Will either yield the solution to Manutius? And what will happen to Mr. Penumbra and his store?

For lovers of bookstores, this is a great mystery, with the smell of old books and a quest for knowledge. It explores the time we are in, between the world of texts engaged by readers, and the different path of knowledge the web and its algorithms offer. The plot is a page-turner, first as Jannon and his friends (and Kat, with whom Clay falls in and out of love), try to unravel the mystery of the Waybacklist, and then the quest to decode Manutius.

If I would have one beef, it is the characters. They are quirky, but flat. They seem to be caricatures that provide the needed personnel to move a story of old and new ways of knowing forward. It almost feels to me that they are in a video game. The plot saves this book as one is drawn in by the mystery and sense of adventure. I find it interesting that the book was named a best book by NPR and several newspapers and won several other awards. It was a good and diverting read but fell short of great for me. I did like the cool, glow-in-the-dark cover, however.