2 comments about Understanding Book Collecting.

1. This is a handsome binding (for a modern book), with much useful information and many interesting pictures. A great browse for us "bibliopegists" (students and lovers of fine bindings). A delightful passage:
   
   "Nevertheless, Sir, there are some things more fit to be looked at than others; for instance, there is nothing more fit to be looked at than the outside of a book . . . It is, as I may say from repeated experience, a pure and unmixed pleasure to have a goodly volume lying before you, and to know that you . . . need not open it unless you please . . . There is no place, in which a man can move or sit, in which the outside of a book can be otherwise than an innocent and becoming spectacle."
   
   Thomas Love Peacock, Victorian



2. Don't get me wrong, this is a beautiful little book, and it's full of information. But it's British, and book-collecting in Britain (UK) has a very different slant than here in the U.S., and perhaps this should have been indicated in the title. I also mention "antiquarian", which is the field this handsome little reference seems to favor, whereas there are numerous fields of collecting more egalitarian which are untouched upon. So if you're into antiquarian books, and want to learn more about the British market, this is the book for you. An overview of the field in general it isn't. For a good introductory text I recommend Modern Book Collecting by Robert Wilson.

5 comments about Living With Books.

1. Lots of design information on home decorating with books. If floor space is being taken over by your collection of books and magazines, here is a book packed with creative book storage and display ideas for every room in the house including the bathroom. From "Design Matters" in Oregon Home, "There are options for the maximalists (walls covered floor-to-ceiling with books of all shapes) and minimalists (neatly piled art books as mantelpieces) in us all." So if you are a big-time book collector or just looking to stash your cookbooks, this book is inspiring.



2. I'm shocked amd confused by the negative reviews I see here. This is a fabulous photo book. Even if you don't like how others seem to live with/use their books, you have to respect their ingenuity and funky designs. Some are quite sloppy, lol. This will get you thinking about how you can use books as decor and even furniture. This is far from boring, whereas another reviewer mentioned the Ellis book At Home With Books, which I thought was just AWFUL, a total snooze. I've never returned a book to a library so quickly! I was so impressed with LIVING WITH BOOKS that I added it to my wish list...and will be purchasing it today.



3. I had high hopes because I love reading about books, but this one was disappointing. I originally gave it three stars for the photos, which are worth looking at, but the text it pretty awful -- a serious drawback in a book aimed at compulsive book collectors. I took off one whole star specifically for a line that says something like, "It doesn't matter if books access is difficult, as long as it isn't completely impossible." Doesn't matter to whom? It does to this reader. I reread. I browse nostalgic favorites. I like to handle my books, and I need to be able to get to them. Also, a substantial number of the storage systems shown appear to be concerned more with style than with storage -- I didn't mind the coffee table constructed of books layered with glass, as those were old design catalogs and the whole was sort of a pun, but the grid system and a few other types of shelves that only contained a book or two here and there as placed by a decorator is really not my idea of living with books. Get this if you want pretty pictures. If you're really interested in books themselves and how they are stored, try Henry Petroski's The Book and the Bookshelf instead.



4. This is more of a coffe table book. It's full of interesting photographs of, what else, books. The pictures show books incorporated into interesting architecture, unique shelving and storage for books, home libraries and offices, etc. The text offers advice and commentary on displaying and storing books in practical, unique, and interesting ways. If you're a bookworm and/or collect lots of books, you would enjoy paging through Living With Books.



5. I have a feeling the previous reviewers were expecting a how-to book of home construction projects. Actually this is more of a tour guide. It's fascinating to discover the many creative, ingenious, and very original ways architects and ordinary booklovers have found to store books, display them, and enjoy being in their presence. Face it -- one never has enough bookshelves. And some of these homes are definitely masquerading as libraries! Here are bookshelves up under the eaves of an older house, or installed over the doorways in the hall, or built into closets and cupboards and under kitchen counters. Others are freestanding on metal shelves and poles and rigged like a ship's masts. There are small libraries built into the landings of staircases and others that cover entire walls of bedrooms. Some are two tiers deep, with the front one moving sideways on rollers. Others share space with lamps, TV sets, telephones, clocks, computers, ancient artifacts, photographs, and knick-knacks. And the one thing all the arrangements depicted in this book have in common is, none of them -- even the most attractively arranged -- are just for show. One look at the worn covers and frayed jackets tells you these books are the constant companions of their owners.

5 comments about Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade.

1. I have to admit I'm divided on this book. As a 4-5 block slice of New York City history, it's thoroughly researched and reported and many times engaging, with some real characters from a decidedly off-center cache. And as an insider's look at a burgeoning book trade with more book shelves per square block than we're ever likely to see again (sadly), I found it in turn wistfully nostalgic in both the descriptions of dead booksellers and quotes from the ones still alive, and elegiac in its ruminations on the sad state of our post-Book Row culture.
   
   The problem is, each of the things I liked about it work against it as well. Its narrow scope is problematic, at least within the framework Meador and Mondlin use, with many of the chapters seeming a lot like the ones before them with the names changed and a lot of factual repetition. And the nostalgia can get a little overbearing, with a pretty strong Neo-Luddite bias toward internet book dealers ("Those who had the books and the know-how might buy and sell books on the Net, but we'd like to hear Peter Stammer's, Sam Dauber's, and Jack Biblo's views of them as secondhand book dealers"). You could also say that as estate book buyer for the Strand Meador's neutrality might come into question, and you wouldn't be disproved with chapter titles like "The Strand Lives On" and almost a third of the glossy pictures devoted to the Bass family that runs the Strand.
   
   In sum I'd say this is a book for book-industry specialists (especially the older ones who might recognize more of the names the authors drop without much historical grounding) and book buffs with enough interest to sift through 400 pages that could have easily been 200. I fall more into the latter than the former, but even then would recommend Chapters One, Two, Five, Nine, Eleven, Fourteen, Fifteen, the Appendix (a cool little pre-Book Row history of books in NYC), and the foreword by legendary book collector Madeleine B. Stern.



2. This book was a dull disappointment because the authors (one of whom is a book buyer for the landmark Strand Bookstore) are very poor historians. I had hopes of Book Row providing a glimpse into the past of the Manhattan neighborhood in which I live and a window into long-gone independently owned bookstores. It was instead a flood of trivial names and dates that provided very little context or description, and consequently very little to fuel understanding or the imagination.
   
   The book is mostly an endless series of abstract, biographical sketches of the booksellers--mainly names and dates with a light peppering of anecdotes that are at most mildly amusing. The authors show no insight or analysis of what made these individuals become proprietors of bookstores and personal bookbuyers for wealthy collectors (who are also inadequately described). It is possible that evidence of only these factual bare bones have survived, but it is then the task of the historian to flesh these out with a picture of the time and place to which these facts belong. Book Row fails to do this because the authors are too content with name-dropping: a particular noted actor shopped at a certain store, a wealthy collector (of whom nothing further is said) praised a bookbuyer as the best. Lists of names are frequently given when they provide absolutely no informational or narrative value.
   
   This is a book about independent Manhattan bookstore owners in the early 20th century that fails to reveal anything concrete about what it meant to own a store at that time, or what the character of the neighborhood or its residents were. The reader gets the exact price of how much a particular rare volume procured at auction, but not a picture of where these auctions took place or how they proceeded, or a perspective on how important individual books or book collections were to these auctions. Similarly, the authors often provide street addresses of stores, yet fail to describe the buildings themselves. Missing are such basic facts such as whether a bookstore at a given time was likely to have had modern electric lighting or gas light, or even who owned the building or what the rent was likely to have been. All of these flaws, of style as well as research, made reading Book Row rarely more educational or entertaining than browsing the "Bookstores-Used" section of an old yellow pages.



3. In the last couple of decades of the 19th century and the first few decades of the 20th century, New York City was home to a series of legendary booksellers who did business on and around Fourth Street south of Fourteenth Street. It came to be called "Book Row" by dedicated bibliophiles and had its own very distinctive culture, aromas, and for the true book lover, an excitement that could not be duplicated in the same quantity, quality, or diversity in any other American city of the time. In Book Row: An Anecdotal And Pictorial History Of The Antiquarian Book Trade, authors Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador have collaborated to provide a definitive and enthusiastically recommended history of the times and personalities that made Book Row the Mecca for book collectors in search of antiquarian treasures, as well as budget bookaholics looking for something interesting to read.



4. It is refreshing to read books written by bibliophiles who express a true appreciation for fine books. They are true literary aesthetes. I've never known scholars or even poets to express such a love of books. Reading "Book Row" has inspired me to acquire more of the classics in fine editions. I think the authors were a little too dismissive of the Internet which has been a tremendous help to me in finding rare books. I no longer have to settle for what I find on the shelves in bookstores with bad taste in books. I can always find exactly what I want to read. The Internet is the greatest bookman there ever was!



5. Reading Mondlin and Meador's descriptions of the long-gone used-book emporia that once graced Fourth Avenue in New York City both depressed and exhilarated me. Depressed, because I'll never have a chance to browse their musty aisles crowded with books. Exhilarated, because this volume successfully captures the thrill of browsing that I've experienced at the Strand bookstore (the sole Book Row survivor) and a few other stores. It's too bad the mindset of our culture has shifted to one in which an intelligent pleasure like browsing for good, cheap used books--in person, in a physical store--has been marginalized. Yes, Web bookbuying has its advantages, but still...I feel something precious has been lost.

1 comments about The Unauthorized Collector's Guide to Garfield(R) and the Gang.

1. This Garfield Collector's Guide is great. Loaded with nice size full-color pictures and prices. My only disappointment was that there is no catagory for Garfield holiday ornaments. My sister decorates her holiday tree entirely with Garfield. It looks fantastic! I ordered this book for her, so that she may keep track of ornament values. Unfortunatly, this guide covers everything but. It has chapters on plush toys, banks, figurines, McDonalds/Burger King Pormotional items, and more. Everything but holiday ornaments, which is why I give it a 4-star.

No comments about Inclined Toward Magic: Encounters With Books, Collectors, and Conjurors.

5 comments about 100 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature.

1. Great book. Censorship is the enemy of people. One author whose books in China are banned by the PRC is Jung Chang's Wild Swans, as well as her Mao. Both are great books.



2. This fine and informative book describes 100 books which were "banned" for different reasons, including content and belief. I believe that "banned" is too strong of a word. Something like "restricted" is more appropriate, since none of these books were actually removed from print or circulation.
   
   The book is arranged into four sections: literature suppressed on political grounds, literature suppressed on religious grounds, literature suppressed on sexual grounds, and literature suppressed on social grounds. Each section contains approximately twenty banned books. Such classics as "Fahrenheit 451", Lolita", "Naked Lunch", and "A Clockwork Orange" are included in the list.
   
   Each banned book is briefly summarized, along with information about the author, original date and place of publication, and literary form. A censorship history is also included which describes the various efforts to have the book blocked from view. The further readings section gives the reader a list of other areas to search for more information about the book.
   
   I used this book for a Master's degree course in library science, and it was extremely helpful. The summary gives just enough information so the reader can understand the book without having to read it in its entireity. The censorship history section helps the reader understand the efforts to have the book removed from public access.
   
   As a student of library science, I feel that no book should be censored. This is a violation of intellectual freedom and it denies the individual the right to read what they choose to. Books are the backbone of knowledge and learning, and they should never, for any reason, be kept out of people's hands. I highly recommend this fine book. The information contained inside is extremely valuable to the understanding of censorship. The books contained inside are relatively mild compared to some of the books being published today. If you are interested in censorship or learning more about banned books, then be sure to read this fine book.



3. This a great concept of a book, but the scholarship, prose, and editing are all shoddy. Some facts are flat-out wrong, dates often have transposed numbers, entries are repetitive.
   
   Some of the entries are misrepresentative of censorship trends. For example, there is an entry on Voltaire's "Candide." However, the only time "Candide" was ever censored (as far as my research can tell) is once in the 1930s when one shipment of French copies was stopped in American customs because of the pictures. So it's the *artwork* which was being censored, not the novel. Additionally, much of Voltaire's work WAS actively censored, both during and after his lifetime, but Karolides and crew fail to mention that.
   
   My college Censorship Honors Seminar course used this book as a textbook and we spent most of our time wondering if the editor was asleep while proofing the text. It was horrid.



4. I couldn't put this book down. The stories of censorship are fascinating and provide keen insight into the histories of the times when the books were published. In particular, the authors do an excellent job of bringing out the societal forces that were in conflict. I highly recommend this book.



5. 100 Banned Books: Censorship Histories Of World Literature is a collaboration between Nicholas J. Karolides (professor of English and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Wisconsin, River Falls) and Ken Wachsberger (editor of "Voices From The Underground" and managing editor of several journals at MCB University Press, Bradford, England) who present a detailed look at one hundred different fiction and nonfiction books that have been widely banned throughout history. The entry devoted to each book features a detailed summary of the plot or ideas expressed within, followed by a concise yet carefully accurate history of the censorship of the book. From Mein Kampf to Lady Chatterly's Lover to Uncle Tom's Cabin, just about every famous work subject to banning is carefully scrutinized in this well-researched reference. 100 Banned Books is a strongly recommended addition to academic and community library collections, and deserves special inclusion in the efforts to promote annual "Banned Books" events at school and public library systems.

5 comments about Memoirs of a Book Snake: Forty Years of Seeking and Saving Old Books.

1. The book was decent, but I don't think it was anything terribly special. I thought that, in addition to rambling on about certain points, the author jumped around in his time line. He would mention things that made no sense because what would have introduced you to that point doesn't appear for several pages.
   
   Overall, not too bad, but not the best either.



2. Basically this is a vanity press offering prepared by the author to cash in on the rare book collecting momentum, earlier stimulated by Nicholas Basbanes. It is essentially a "chapbook". It is about 150 pages, which at it's list price comes to about $.15 a page or $.30 for both sides. (Covers included free of charge). It talks little about book collecting or even scouting except for the author's meandering about a few interesting trips and people met along the way. I strongly encourage those interested in book collecting to read ANY of Mr. Basbanes books before purchasing this overpriced narcissistic exercise.



3. As previous reviewers noted it is a brief book. It is however an enjoyable one. Where many books about books devolve into a "how much I paid and what it's worth" book this one rarely does. When he gets into the "how much I paid and what it's worth" it is almost always because there is a point behinds it. Mostly this book is the story of the people behind the books (authors, booksellers, other book snakes, etc). The only slightly annoying characteristic of this book is that it has a few too many pictures. Almost as if to fluff the book out a little. Certainly as someone who has a love of books he should know better.
   
   Despite its length and pictures, I look forward to reading his second book.



4. I agree w/ the previous reviewer: this is really a wonderful book
   but for the asking price, it's too brief. However, for those who love to "book search" it's delightful to read of the author's finds. Highly recommended, elegiac and wry.



5. This is a book about books. The author describes some of his more interesting finds in the book world.

   This book was an interesting read. The author's wondefully breezy writing style was enchanting and fun to read. His anecdotes on various book finds made you feel as though you were right next to him.

   So why the 3 stars?

   This book took me exactly 2 hours to read! It is compact and has so few pages, that I felt a little discouraged from the start.

   This author truly is entertaining with his stories and if his career spans over 40 years, surely he could have added a couple more (like maybe a 100 or so more) pages to the book. Just as I was starting to really get into it, the book ends.

   I was also put off by the cost of the book. $20.00 for 2 hours of reading is expensive!

   However, if you like books on books that are a fun read, this is the book for you.

1 comments about The History of the Illustrated Book: The Western Tradition.

1. Good day! Necessary of this material with urgency, and already I am counting as certain the presence of it for the beginning of the lessons. Therefore soon I will have to make another bibliography purchase new.

1 comments about Collector's Guide to Children's Books, 1850-1950: Identification & Values, Vol. 2.

1. This book is very comprehensive with a large amount of information. The information is easy to find with more than one indexing system. The quality of the paper and photos make it enjoyable to use. Highly recommend.

No comments about Atlas Maior - Hollandia Et Belgica.