Classical Bookworm

Happy World Book and Copyright Day!

How to Solve Global Warming: Buy More Books!

I love this justification for having walls full of books:

In today's environment-conscious world, they also have another valuable function. "Books are the original insulator. A shelf of books along an outside wall works well to prevent heat escaping," says Joel Rickett. "If all the books were removed from the homes in Britain, our energy bills would rocket."

Works for me!

via Bookshelf

Biblionetworking Review

Book Patrol has posted a review of some of the latest developments in LibraryThing, Shelfari, and Goodreads. He also gives a general characterization of each site, which, in a nutshell, is that LibraryThing is reader-centered, Shelfari is publisher-centered, and Goodreads is author-centered. Do you agree?

Best and Greatest Books, Canadian Style

This year Penguin Canada is challenging Canadians to read 52 of The Best Books Ever Written. Each week one title will be revealed in the Globe and Mail, and they are being collected at Amazon.ca (where one can conveniently purchase Penguin editions of these classics, of course). I was quite surprised to find I have read 4 of the 9 books assigned so far, but I don't think that percentage will last throughout the year.

Strangely, the Globe and Mail is running a separate profile of the 50 Greatest Books. Apart from their first selection, they've chosen much weightier books than Penguin has, including nonfiction and poetry. Each is accompanied by an article from a leading expert on the book in question. Unfortunately there isn't a master page with links to all the articles, so you'll have to scan the Arts page for the lastest addition, and that will lead to the rest.

Book Club of the Street

I just read a really interesting article about a book club at a homeless shelter in Cleveland. Men who have no bookshelves, not even their own chair or bed to read in, are reading two books a month thanks to a partnership between the Cleveland Public Library and the 2100 Lakeside Men's Shelter.

"We love books," said Willie Griggs, who has had heart surgery and walks with a cane. "We don't have a TV we can carry around with us."

Instead of watching TV in one of the living areas, called "communities," 15 men came to talk about Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes."

The shelter nurse says that it's easier to broach sensitive subjects after talking about the books the men are reading. What I find touching is that reading stories helps the men deal with their own life stories.

[Nurse] Kelly has found that the men are more open to counsel on health-related topics, such as how to talk to a doctor, when it relates to the experience of a character in a book they love. Sometimes, the book club has spurred its members to make more significant changes. For instance, during a book club field trip to hear an author's talk, one man acknowledged his alcohol problem and said he was ready to see a counselor.

...

Kelly has noticed that participants "pick the place where the character is at the crossroads." They know they're at the same point, and they're trying to get someplace better.

I know urban public libraries also function as homeless shelters—maybe instead of just leaving these people alone and isolated they should be invited to read together. They probably have enthusiastic readers in their midst and don't even know it.

“The Smithsonian Book of Books” by Michael Olmert

I finally got around to finishing The Smithsonian Book of Books by Michael Olmert and I'm sorry to say that it's a book that promises more than it delivers. Perhaps I've been spoiled by Christopher de Hamel's The Book, a beautiful, rigorous, comprehensive, orderly, and fascinating history of the Bible as a book. I thought I might be getting something similar here but I was terribly mistaken.

It starts off as a history but soon starts jumping around in time to address various themes. The text is interrupted by short vignettes on particular topics, which eventually morph into chapters as chronology is all but abandoned. Some of the digressions deal with subjects the author has written on before (such as Colonial Williamsburg, which pops up again and again) and they often come across as tangential if not irrelevant. It's possible that Olmert was required to insert a certain amount of American content, or else he just didn't have the time or inclination to write new material. I also noticed that certain aspects of basic book history, which I learned from de Hamel's superior work, were simply left out. This is just not a book to learn the history of books from.

Perhaps I am asking too much from a coffee-table book, but it doesn't even match The Book in illustrations either. As with the text, some of the illustrations seem irrelevant and just there to make up the numbers (e.g. a half-page painting of the Williamsburg courthouse to illustrate civil record-keeping). A great number of the illustrations are also blurry, which I think is unpardonable these days.

Certainly there are a number of interesting tidbits here, both in the text and illustrations, and I particularly enjoyed the explanation of the mechanics of type casting and type setting. However I don't think there is anything here that you can't get in much better form elsewhere. I'm glad I didn't have to pay for this book (thanks to you all) and I think I'll be hocking it fairly soon. Sorry Mr. Olmert.

Books and Bathrooms

The Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Society has made scores of articles, stretching back 40 years, available free online. I just had to share this tidbit from Archives, Libraries, and the Order of the Biblical Books by Menahem Haran.

During [the period of the Caesars], a vast number of private libraries also arose there, so much so that Seneca commented (De Tranquillitate Animi, IX, 5, 7) that books were no longer used for studying, only for decorating dining-halls. In every respectable home, he added, books became de rigeur, just like bathrooms.

And two thousand years later, the same kinds of people are buying the entire Loeb Classical Library, including 10 volumes of Seneca, to decorate their homes.

via awilum.com

A Bibliophile's Epitaph

The Body of B. Franklin, Printer;
Like the Cover of an old Book,
Its Contents torn out,
And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding,
Lies here, Food for Worms.
But the Work shall not be wholly lost:
For it will, as he believ'd, appear once more,
In a new and more perfect Edition,
Corrected and amended By the Author.

—Benjamin Franklin, age 28 [from The Smithsonian Book of Books]

ProcrastinationThing

It's typical of me to jump on a bandwagon long after everyone else has jumped on, gone for a nice long ride, and jumped off to catch the next one. So with LibraryThing, which was launched way back in 2005 (by a former classics student, interestingly). I finally gave it a whirl and I must say it's a delightful way to waste spend time. Much more delightful than, say, dealing with the biology experiment that is my fridge.

For what it's worth, I've used it to catalogue the books I've collected (so far) for my little project of acquainting myself with the greatest and most important works of art, music, and literature produced in the last 3000 years or so. I think it goes without saying that I've only read a fraction of these books cover-to-cover. That's not the point here. The point is that these books are the beginning of a basic library of the arts and humanities, with a few little extras thrown in.

So I invite you all to snoop around my shelves. Feel free to leave a note or 'friend' me, and I'll come look at your books.

Book Rich, Cash Poor

Many thanks to the Northwoods Contemplative for sending me this great quote.

The fidelity of Benedictines to the practice of reading has been of great service to mankind.  It had been to secure suitable reading materials for the monks that monastic libraries were established and the skills of literacy preserved.  Although Benedict did not envisage his monks as custodians of culture...nevertheless the devotion to reading which he infused into his followers was sufficiently strong to ensure that much was accomplished in securing the accumulated wisdom of the Greco-Roman World and of western Christianity from the erosion which accompanied the collapse of the western Roman Empire.

Nor should the communal sacrifice demanded by such fidelity be underestimated.  The buiding up of even a small library was an expensive project and the copying of manuscripts kept many workers away from more lucrative employments.  When we consider that Clairvaux, during the forty years of Bernard's abbacy, acquired several hundred tomes, only some of which were gifts, we can form some idea of how many hours some of his monks spent at scriptorium tasks.  To provide a library, an educational system and scope for personal reading demands the outlay of considerable resources and the corresponding acceptance of a lower standard of living and less capital-based influence than would otherwise have been possible.  Dedication to reading is a guaranteed means of staying poor!

—Michael Casey, An Undivided Heart: The Western Monastic Approach to Contemplation