Voor de liefhebbers: nieuwe boeken over boeken

Is er iets leukers voor een boekengek dan lezen over andere boekengekken, nee toch? Er zijn weer wat nieuwe (engelstalige) boeken over boeken verschenen. Onderstaand een selectie:

My Ideal Bookshelf - Thessaly La Force (editor) & Jane Mount (art)

Een combinatie van schrijven over boeken en kunst van boeken; van de boeken die als lievelingsboeken genoemd worden door (veelal) Amerikaanse schrijvers worden de boekruggen op een creatieve manier verbeeld door  kunstenares Jane Mount. Dat geeft aparte effecten. Dit boek zou ik graag willen hebben! (zie http://www.idealbookshelf.com/ ) (boek verschijnt half november)

Judging a book by its lover - Lauren Leto

"For all those overwhelmed readers who need to get a firm grip on the relentless onslaught of must-read books to stay on top of the inevitable conversations that swirl around them, Lauren Leto’s Judging a Book by Its Lover is manna from literary heaven! A hilarious send-up of—and inspired homage to—the passionate and peculiar world of book culture, this guide to literary debate leaves no reader or author unscathed, at once adoring and skewering everyone from Jonathan Franzen to Ayn Rand to Dostoyevsky and the people who read them." (Amazon)

Phantoms on the bookshelves - Jacques Bonnet

"Bonnet owns more than 40,000 books. It’s not the Library of Congress, but for a private collection, it’s pretty solid. In this slim ode to books, the author muses on the life of a serious reader—with Bonnet himself being the ultimate example. In only nine chapters, he talks about many aspects of book collecting: how to organize them, where to acquire them, and the idea of owning a working library rather than just collecting books. Bonnet brings an infectious enthusiasm to the genre. The written word is as important to his identity as his own memories: “To lose one’s books is to lose one’s past,” he says. His love of books is something serious readers can relate to: “I sometimes have the impression that I have really only existed through reading, and I would hope to die…with a book in my hand.”  (BookBeast)

One for the books - Joe Queenan

"Joe Queenan became a voracious  reader as a means of escape from a joyless childhood in a Philadelphia housing project. In the years since then he has dedicated himself to an assortment of  idiosyncratic reading challenges: spending a year reading only short books, spending a year reading books he always suspected he would hate, spending a year reading books he picked with his eyes closed.
In One for the Books, Queenan tries to come to terms with his own eccentric reading style—how many more books will he have time to read in his lifetime? Why does he refuse to read books hailed  by reviewers as “astonishing”? Why does he refuse to lend out books? Will he ever buy an e-book? Why does he habitually read thirty to forty books simultaneously? Why are there so many people to whom the above questions do not even matter—and what do they read? Acerbically funny yet passionate and oddly affectionate, One for the Books is a reading experience that true book lovers will find unforgettable."(Amazon) (boek verschijnt 25 oktober)

The Whole Five Feet - Christopher Beha

"In The Whole Five Feet, Christopher Beha turns to the great books for answers after undergoing a series of personal and family crises and learning that his grandmother had used the Harvard Classics to educate herself during the Great Depression. The result is a smart, big-hearted, and inspirational mix of memoir and intellectual excursion that “deftly illustrates how books can save one’s life” (BookBeast)