TITLE:  Phantoms on the Bookshelves

AUTHOR:  Jacques Bonnet

TRANSLATOR:  Siân Reynolds

DATE PUBLISHED:  2010

ISBN-13:  9781906694586

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DESCRIPTION:

"This enchanting study on the art of living with books considers how our personal libraries reveal our true nature: far more than just places, they are living labyrinths of our innermost feelings. The author, a lifelong accumulator of books both ancient and modern, lives in a house large enough to accommodate his many thousands of books, as well as overspill from the libraries of his friends. While his musings on the habits of collectors past and present are learned, witty and instructive, his advice on cataloguing may even save the lives of those whose books are so prodigiously piled as to be a hazard... The Phantoms on the Bookshelves ranges from classical Greece to contemporary Iceland, from Balzac and Moby Dick to Google, offering up delicious anecdotes along the way. This elegantly produced volume will be a lasting delight to specialist collectors, librarians, bibliophiles and all those who treasure books."

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REVIEW:

A memoir-type collection of hodge-podge book collection musings.  For a specific audience  - those with vast libraries and/or those with an interest in (mostly) French literature.

40,000 books.  Bonnet has 40,000 books in his personal library.  At one point he had bookshelves in his bathroom, so he couldn't use the shower and could only run the bath with the window open.  He also had bookshelves in his kitchen, so no cooking with strong flavours could be done either.  I've been looking at my 1300 or so books thinking to myself I'm staring into the face of a possible obsession, but 40,000?!?  I suddenly feel quite well-adjusted.

I loved this book; it hit just the right note of chatty and philosophical, with so many quotable bits I just stopped trying to keep track - I'd have ended up reproducing the book itself.  Unlike Books: A Memoir this is entirely about the books: collecting, reading, organising; what Bonnet says about himself might amount to 2 sentences in total if you threw in a few articles and punctuation.

My only, only niggle is the result of my own reading inadequacies: he drops a lot of titles into the text (of course), and most of them are ones I've never heard of and seem to be only available in French.  This is entirely understandable, because Bonnet is French and this book was originally written and published in French.  So I was left in a few places skimming over French titles that meant little to me; c'est la vie.

Speaking of this being a translation, I can't speak with any authority, but I thought this was an excellent translation insomuch as I felt like the author's personality came through perfectly; the narrative felt smooth and natural and Reynolds took pains at the beginning to explain how French titles would be translated to English based on whether or not an English translation of the book was ever published.  A bibliography is also included at the back of books mentioned in the text.

This one is for the book collectors out there; those who love physical books and find tranquility in standing in a room surrounded by them.  For you, this is a book worth reading (and owning, of course!).

So I was really bored awhile back and I found this article:

http://flavorwire.com/335372/10-essential-books-for-book-nerds

listing 10 books about books.  I sort of think the only thing better than books is books about books, so I bought 6 of them (I already had two of them) and the first four arrived this week.

I've already started Books: A Memoir  and I have to say so far... not impressed.  Too much "I" and not enough "book".  Hopefully, I'll have better luck with the others.

Have a great weekend everyone!

There's a very fine line between bibliophilia and book hoarding and at time it's difficult to tell which side of the line the people described in this book fall. Ultimately, the book is an ode to a dying age of literature where the print novel reigned supreme, a time before the digital revolution. As someone who wasn't quite present for the period this book was describing, at least not in the capacity that the author was, I felt separated from the wave of nostalgia and merely found the book compelling as a caricature of sorts.

I found the conception in this book of knowledge versus property to be one of the most interesting aspects of the works as a whole. The introduction in my edition by James Salter states the divide as "[t]he physical possession of a book may become of little significance. Access will be what matters..." This entire work can be seen as a question about the changing face of reading. While the author seems interested in the ways that the internet has affected the literary world, both for ability to find rare titles and for the increase in overall production of literature, his interest feels almost mournful of the lost ways of reading where one had to hunt for books that would complete a set. The irony that I read this book in an ebook format wasn't lost on me.

While this book gives a beautiful depiction of the way the author grew into the lover of books that he is today and shows a glimpse of a society that is perhaps fading from the contemporary world, it also acts as an argument that books have value inherently, beyond the knowledge, information, or stories they may contain. At multiple instances the author makes note of the many books he owns but has never touched since shelving them upon purchase. Ultimately, this is what drew me away from the book because it made it feel like an ode to a love of books, not to a love of reading.