BIBLIOgraphy

Three Ways to Love Books

Not mutually exclusive!  But each way appeals particularly to a certain inclination of the booklover nature . . . 

The Sensualist just loves to have books around: in view, in shelves, in stacks, in bed, in short--everywhere. 

The Infomaniac adores books as: founts, repositories, tools, etc., capable of feeding the need to know.

The Reader really wants to get lost in each book, savoring its world and relishing the pure experience of eyes-on-the-page.

If you're a Sensualist, visit this post from The Nonist to see some of the most gorgeous libraries imaginable.  (Please pause to admire the search-bait post title.)

Infomaniacs, you'll appreciate Matt Cornell's great post:  How to Read a Lot of Books in a Short Time.

For you Readers, of course, the web is rife with possibilities, from Amazon reader reviews and lists to online book clubs to author fan sites to the many-many booklover blogs you can (what's the phrase I'm looking for here?) . . .  Stumble Upon!

Whatever your personal persuasion, I hope you'll join me to explore and enjoy all three flavors of book-love.  Just add BIBLIOgraphy to your blog reading list. 

Mmmmm . . . . books. (The Joy of LibraryThing)

LibraryThing is perfectly explained in this Wall Street Journal article.  Short version--it's a website that lets you create an online catalog of your books.  It's easy, elegant, and rich with amenities that let you explore your relationship to books.  (If you want to, you can do a spot of social networking with other bookfolk, but that's somewhat secondary.)

So here's the remarkable thing:  According to WSJ in June 2006, LT had 47,670 registered members, cataloging more than 3.6 million volumes. Just three years later (i.e., now), the statistics  have skyrocketed, with almost a million users having catalogued more than 45 million books.

What can possibly account for this?  A few thoughts . . .   

• People are thrilled to find a way of merging the impersonal world of online information with their own highly personalized stocks of lore.
• People want to preserve a record of their libraries in case of fire, flood, or the collapse of civilization.
• People want to see what life might be like in a universe where everyone is a bookworm.

Probably all of the above--and one more reason (my own chief motivation) that I'll write about in another post.

Meanwhile, click here for alternatives to LibraryThing.

Perfect Book #1

The essays collected in Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) made Joan Didion important, and The White Album (1979) made her an icon.  But it was the 1970 novel Play It As It Lays that made her indispensable.

Didion's second work of fiction is very short (one of the special reasons I love it), unfolding in 84 snippets that range from a paragraph to a few pages.  As you read it, the discrete parts seem to accumulate, evolve, and connect themselves into a narrative that didn't exist before you started reading--and will be gone after you finish.

Somehow Play It manages to be simultaneously transparent and opaque, rather like the shimmering heat that recurs in Didion's desert evocations.  So to say (as people usually do) that the novel follows the deteriorating life of fringe starlet Maria Wyeth as she goes through abortion, divorce, and nervous breakdown, is to see only one dimension. To say (as people usually do) that it is a scathing expose of Hollywood hedonism and SoCal shallowness, is to see only another dimension.

To view the novel in 3-D, you have to know (or suspect) what Maria knows--and decide what she decides.

If Play It As It Lays is already a Perfect Book for you, you'll know exactly what I mean.  If you haven't read it yet, you'll find out on the very last page whether what I say makes sense or not.

Some lore . . .

Five Qualities of a Perfect Book

1.  It's not replaceable by some other title in the same genre, or by the same author, or on the same topic.

2.  Every few years (or months or whatever) you feel a restless urge--or a driving need--to reread it.

3.  There's something in or about the book that was meant personally for you.  No one else can understand it just the way you do.

4.  Even if you forget about it for years . . . when you pick it up again, everything is perfectly familiar.

5.  No matter how often you read it, you are never disappointed.  And always surprised.