August Reading Through Time: The Joy of Reading

The Joy of Reading


"History is no closed book" by zeze57 is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/?ref=openverse.

In August, I thought we could read about books, in any capacity. If you want it to be books in general, or even libraries, publishers, or bookstores, that works, too!

I like to do reads that focus on the history of the topic for this group (usually nonfiction, but of course fiction can work, too), so that will be what’s included in my suggestions

Some Suggestions:
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop / Lewis Buzbee
The Library Book / Susan Orlean
Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 / Phil Baines
When Books Went to War / Molly Guptill Manning
The Book of Speculation / Erika Swyler
The Man Who Made Lists / Joshua Kendall
The Professor and the Madman / Simon Winchester
Reading Lolita In Tehran / Azar Nafisi

Don’t forget to post to the wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Reading_Through_Time_Challenge#Future_To...


"Stack of Books" by Sam Howzit is licensed under CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=openverse.

I have a ton of these. these are among my favs quotes are from book reviews

a splendor of letters by nicholas basbanes
The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World
"Amazing, exciting read, hours of pleasure and information. This author is someone who would be a delight to know and have over for dinner."

a readers delight
"One of America's finest essayists writes about 40 literary masterpieces that have been wrongfully forgotten or were ignored in the first place."

slightly chipped foot notes in booklore
"Follows the authors as they explore the world of book collecting and shares their experiences as they discover new places to find and buy rare literary works."

used and rare travels in the book world
anything by nancy and lawrence goldstone are highly recommended

sixpence house lost in a town of books. Exploring the book town i Hay n Wye in wales

a history of reading Marc recommended this and I found it fascinating
"At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book - that string of confused, alien ciphers - shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader."

book row An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade
"The American Story of the Bookstores on Fourth Avenue from the 1890s to the 1960s New York City has eight million stories, and this one unfolds just south of Fourteenth Street in Manhattan, on the seven blocks of Fourth Avenue bracketed by Union Square and Astor Place."

ex librisConfessions of a Common Reader
" This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. "

the library book the reading agency *
"A pleasant little anthology of essays and stories celebrating the magic of public libraries, by everyone who was anybody in British literature in 2012, from Alan Bennett to Zadie Smith, published in aid of the literacy charity, The Reading Agency."

read with me really interesting book by Costain
"An out-of-print collection of good short stories."

how to be a heroineOr, What I've Learned from Reading too Much
"she embarks on a retrospective look at the literary ladies--the characters and the writers--whom she has loved since childhood. From early obsessions with the March sisters to later idolizations of Sylvia Plath, Ellis evaluates how her heroines stack up today. "

* loved this review showing the power of LT connecting readers to books;

"This was an inadvertent BB from mstrust who initially used the wrong touchstone. It caught my eye because I spotted Alan Bennett’s name in the drop down description. However, there were many favourite authors in this anthology created in support of libraries: Ann Cleeves, Caitlin Moran, Val McDermid, Zadie Smith, and more. The story from Kate Mosse was a hair-raising ghost story. And Alan Bennett’s essay was so typically personal that I could hear his voice. Both interesting and inspirational, this was a very enjoyable read, and just imagine, without mstrust’s mistaken touchstone, I may never have found it.

One of the most interesting books I read about books was Dangerous Books for Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels Explained. I'm not sure if I'll do a reread of that or tackle The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators.

I think I would like to read Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World by Lawrence Goldstone which has been on my shelf for sometime.

On my list of "leftovers" to get back to this year is ...And Ladies of the Club which would be perfect for this, but it is over 1,000 pages and won't get read in a month. I also have a number of things I need to finish before I pick it up again. But I am determined to read it by the end of the year!

>1 LibraryCin: Cindy - I have added your topic to the Wiki and here is the link:

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Reading_Through_Time_Challenge#Future_To...

One can always get to the Wiki by clicking on the "See More" box found at the top of the main page as well.

I am planning on reading Miss Buncle's Book by D. E. Stevenson.

>6 DeltaQueen50: Thank you! :-) I've updated my first post with the link, as well.

A couple of options for me:

Index, a History of the / Dennis Duncan
Gutenberg's Fingerprint / Merilyn Simonds

>6 DeltaQueen50: oops, wrong Cindy!

>10 cindydavid4: LOL! Aren't there three or four of us in this group!?

ETA: It doesn't help that I don't have the full version of my name in my LT username, either.

at least 3 or 4! seemed to be a very popular name late 50s-60s. Had four in our elem school teachers used the intial of our last names to keep us straight. A few Cynthias in the mix as well

I plan to read The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin (2021), which is historical fiction set during WWII.

finished the book censors library my review here https://www.librarything.com/topic/361718#n8582658

>12 cindydavid4: I was born in the early 70s, so the name carried over! :-) I am also technically a "Cynthia", but have never gone by it.

>13 kac522: I really enjoyed it!

>16 cfk: Good to know, thanks! I'm looking forward to it.

>15 LibraryCin: my best friend in school was a Cynthia. and people would mix us up. but we worked out a solution. Her last name was Cook so of course she was cookie, and my last name ended in Koff so I was coffee. Worked like a charm

>18 cindydavid4: LOL! Nice!

There was another Cindy (I think she is also actually Cynthia) in my small town grade/class growing up. She moved around grade 8 to live with her mom elsewhere, but mostly people just used our last initial to distinguish. (Now, we live in the same city, volunteer at the same cat rescue, and she is married with a new last name and we also now share a last initial!)

>18 cindydavid4: >19 LibraryCin: Fun facts.

I think I will read The Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie.

>21 JayneCM: oh that reminds me the dictionary of lost words, really outstanding book that shows how the dictioary was made, but also what words were left out, either on purpose or accidentally, which woulld be imporant to women and minorities

What a wonderful topic! I already know that I will add so many books to my wishlist from this thread.

I plan to read The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson, a novel set on Jersey in the 1940s.

I'll be reading or listening to The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (by Stephen Greenblatt; narrated by Edoardo Ballerini). I have both the print and audio versions and haven't decided which one I'll queue up yet. It's about the discovery of Lucretius' poem On the Nature of Things in 1417 by a book hunter named Poggio Bracciolini. It would become something of a spark that would ignite the Renaissance.

I’ve been a bit puzzled by this topic, but just now, reading the thread, I’ve realized that a book I had ordered a couple months ago after reading a review will fit perfectly: A Marvelous Solitude: the Art of Reading in Early Modern Europe by Lina Bolzoni. I’m eager to read this and happy for the perfect prompt.

>25 dianelouise100: oh that does sound good! looking forward to yor thoughts

>25 dianelouise100: oh that does sound good! looking forward to your thoughts!

Interesting, I read a review here about this book by Albert Manguel an author who has written quite abit about reading including a history of reading and packing my library both which Ive read and enjoyed

>27 cindydavid4: I started reading Bolzoni. She references A History of Reading in her intro. I’ve not read it, have read Packing my Library, but don’t remember much about it.

I found the history was more accessible than the library . In the latter there is too much of him and his experience, which stands to reason its his book. but it made it laborous to read at times. The history of reading kept my attention through a weekend of reading. I think you'll like it'

Im going to read the library bookwhich I listed above; I hadnt read it but it was listed somewhere and it looked interesting

>3 Familyhistorian: I just purchased Dangerous Books for Girls, thank you for mentioning it! This is a topic I have often thought about and am eager to learn more about. I don't know when I will get to it because I have so much queued up right now, but I am definitely looking forward to it.

Finished The Swerve (by Stephen Greenblatt; narrated by Edoardo Ballerini) over the weekend and am inspired to re-read How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of History #1; by Thomas Cahill). It’s literally been decades since I read it last!

I'm a little early AND it's fiction (though I also have a nonfiction I'm currently reading and will finish soon), but it fits!

The Naturalist's Daughter / Tea Cooper
4 stars

Tamsin is a librarian in the early 1900s in Sydney, Australia. She is tasked to fetch a donated sketchbook of a naturalist from almost 100 years previous, Charles Winton. But when she arrives, the woman who is planning to donate the book has died and her daughter wants to sell the book, not donate it. In addition, the book has some sketches that don’t quite “fit”, though… ones that he may not have drawn, so where did they come from? Tamsin is able to take the book back to the library to try to figure out the provenance.

Almost 100 years earlier, Rose lives with her mother and father, Charles Winton, a naturalist studying platypus. When Winton gets sick just before leaving for England to share his information on the platypus, he sends his daughter Rose, instead. But it’s not easy to get a group of scientific men to listen to a woman, no matter how credible she is.

I really enjoyed this. I liked both timelines and both women, who fought for what they were trying to do. It got a bit confusing toward the end, but that didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the book.

>30 MissBrangwen: Dangerous Books for Girls is really interesting. Amazing how girls' minds were thought to be so easily influenced. I hope you enjoy it.

And here's my nonfiction, already done... I may read one more, though

Index, A History of The / Dennis Duncan
2.5 stars

The title pretty much sums this one up. This is a history of the index that we usually currently find at the back of a nonfiction book that places topics from the book in alphabetical order. (Not all of these things have always been the case for an index!)

I listened to the audio and my attention waxed and waned. Some of it was interesting, but I got distracted and lost interest quite a bit, as well. I think it’s not the best book for an audio, anyway, as there were examples of indexes that had to be read out, which would be much easier to look at.

This was the prompt I needed to finally read 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. I've been wanting to read it for a while now, and pulled it to read this year, but what with my book club reads and all the challenges here on LT, I hadn't managed to squeeze it in before now.

I'm sure everyone here is already familiar with this one, so I won't try to summarize it. Helene's commentary about books is witty, and sometimes hilariously funny. The writing is gentle, and the people are kind. I wish there was more of this to be found in our world today. My loss that it took me so long to read it.

>35 atozgrl: I loved that one too!

I started today on The Library: An Illustrated History which is good so far and well illustrated.

I read Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World by Lawrence Goldstone. The author and his wife were just middleclass Americans who liked the modern classics and liked to read. They knew nothing but Amazon and Barnes and Noble. They did like hardback books, though. They stumbled upon a rather odd, decrepit bookstore and an even odder owner who taught them a thing or two about first printings, editions, etc. For a few years they were "wooed" into spending more than they normally would have on collector's editions. However, this is their ending comment, "We loved our $700 Bleak House and our $650 Martin Chuzzlewit, but we also love our $10 Josephine Tey, our $20 Andersonville, our $10 War and and Peace..........the more we thought about it, the more we came back to our original view. You don't really need first editions at all. They are just affectations.........still...." Great book by level-headed people. 215 pages 4.5 stars

I agree; never much into first editions of modern books but I do love the older ones that mean something to me. I dont need them, but for a bibliofile and collector, I like these finds, not to gloat, but to appreciate and enjoy

>38 Tess_W: We had one of those very old bookstores with uneven hardwood floors, nooks and crannies with a very small section of new books in Atlanta. I used to take my young daughter with me and we'd get lost for hours! Now she's an independent indexer and still loves old books--uses Powell's in Oregon. We didn't have the money for 'collectibles'.

Unfortunately at this stage in my life I'm primarily dependent upon Kindle because I can adjust the print size.

>40 cfk: I also use my ereader for the very same reason, plus it allows me to take 400-500 books with me wherever I go! And reading in the dark is also a winner!

ditto,

A couple weeks ago, as I was reading The Swerve (by Stephen Greenblatt), two books came immediately to mind: The Name of the Rose (by Umberto Eco) and How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of History #1; by Thomas Cahill). I just read The Name of the Rose a couple months ago and in hindsight I would probably have enjoyed it more had I read The Swerve first. Greenblatt’s text makes clear some of the more dense prose of Eco’s story and even gives the latter a bit of shape. It would not be out-of-bounds to think of The Name of the Rose as being a novelization of The Swerve, but of course novelization + mystery!
How the Irish Saved Civilization is a book I last read close to when it was first published in the mid-nineties. I remember thinking it was brilliant then— so perhaps I was bound to be a little disappointed in the re-reading now. The premise of the book is that the scriptoriums in the monasteries & abbies of the Early Medieval Era preserved Ancient/Classical texts by copying them repeatedly through the centuries and, spreading literacy as the monks went forth and proselytized. What Cahill calls & lauds as “intertextual engagement” (wherein contemporary commentary is added or embroidered onto the original text), Greenblatt calls a corruption and presented the book hunters of the Early Modern Era with the challenge of finding “true” texts. I also have to be honest in feeling that other cultures (not Western Civilization) might be a little surprised and justifiably skeptical that the Irish had anything to do with their so-called salvation.

I have read The Library: An Illustrated History. This is a rich work exploring the history of libraries from ancient Assyria to the present day. This is an admirable and fascinating concept, and the book is richly illustrated, meriting its title, and is overall a pleasure to read. That said, the execution of the concept didn't entirely work for me. As well as being a history of libraries, their physical and literary development and the essential role of cataloguing, it also attempted to cover the history of writing and written media, with forays into publishing and bookbinding. All related of course, but it just often felt a bit too skating and a little over ambitious.

Most of the book moves chronologically through the history of libraries, with a spread of coverage across the world. There is an understandable US bias, given the work's origin, though as a Brit, I would have liked to see more coverage of British libraries outside London, Oxford and Cambridge. There are common themes of course and the saddest one is the destruction of numerous libraries across the world in warfare and invasion, but also through natural fires and sheer accident and attrition. The final section of the book consisted of potted accounts of prominent libraries across the world, arranged in no particular order as far as I could tell, and quite often with unnecessary duplication, such as quotes from library's mission statements which, as is often the nature of such statements, are very similar and usually not very revealing about what that particular library does. But overall this is a worthwhile read, and I am sure I will be coming back to it for reference and dipping into in future.

I found 84 Charing Cross Road at my charity bookshop and read it immediately in one sitting. Lovely, and also nostalgic. I bought some lovely old Everyman and Nelson hardcovers in Charing Cross Road on my first trip to London, a long long time ago...

I finished The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin (2021), historical fiction which is set during the London Blitz. In August, 1939, with rumblings of war, Grace Bennett reluctantly takes a temporary job as an assistant in an old, messy bookshop run by surly Mr Evans. She slowly becomes a reader, starts relationships with customers and her landlady, and eventually learns to love the bookshop and its own, even as bombs begin falling on London.

This book felt well-researched and had lots going on, but in the end I felt that the writing left something to be desired. A page-turner with a predictable plot, it probably would be a good book on a long journey.

For myself, I found Frances Faviell's memoir A Chelsea Concerto (1959) a better written and more riveting book about the Blitz, for anyone interested in a personal account of that time.

>46 kac522: I also enjoyed the Last Bookshop in London!

Umberto Eco Bazinga

I have completed my read of Miss Buncle's Book by D. E. Stevenson. This was a gentle, wise and funny read that highlights the power of the written word. I enjoyed it a lot and am happy that there are some sequels to follow up.

Gutenberg's Fingerprint / Merilyn Simonds
3.5 stars

The author collected some stories she’d written and decided to publish them in an old-style way: hand made paper and an old-style printing press where the type is set by hand, etc. This documents that procedure along with plenty of history of paper, ink, type, the printing press, and much much more. It also looks at how she (and her son) created the ebook, and the last chapters of the book talk about the history of ereaders and ebooks.

This was interesting. It took me back to my “History of the Book” class in library school when we did field trips to learn to make paper, then we later went to a printing press where we hand set the type and printed our names on our paper that we’d already made. The modern technology was also interesting to read about. It’s not fast paced or “can’t put the book down” kind of read, but it was definitely interesting to read about all those things.

Sarah Beth Durst, The Spellshop 3½***. A "cozy romantasy" about a librarian who rescues some of the magical spellbooks when the library is burned down in a revolution and takes off with them to a haven in the island of her birth where she opens a shop selling fruit jams as a cover for her illegal spellcasting activities. Quick Kindle read, and I'd be more inclined to give it just 3***, but I gave it that extra ½* in consideration of its high ranking by other readers.

Iain Pears, Arcadia 4****. The Inklings live on at Oxford, where Professor Henry Lytten has written a draft version of a fantasy that a mathematician-scientist from the future has made real.... Combo of sci-fi, fantasy, and a touch of espionage (but the book itself is really sci-fi) that I've been meaning to read for ages. A little bit confusing by virtue of the large cast of characters, this is one that requires (and merits) a reread to keep things straight.

I won't finish The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators for a while. It's a large tome delving into the history of mysteries and many books are mentioned in its pages, so it's interesting while being dangerous because of all the potential reads mentioned.

I did finish this in August, but I am late reporting:
The Personal Librarian
Based on the life of Belle DaCosta Greene, who worked for J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle became a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helped to create a world-class collection, and make it available to the general public.
3 green stars
This should have been a fascinating story about a real woman, and it kept my interest for about 40% of the book. After that, it got very repetitive and same old, same old. Surely there was more to her life than the constant race angle. There isn't a lot of historical evidence that this was even an issue for her. I found the descriptions of her relationships, even with her father, to be contrived, and sorry, but the sex scenes were just cringeworthy. And the whole storyline about her lover's business dealings and "betrayal" was wholly made up. I wanted to like this book much more than I did. What I did learn about her, I found very interesting. She was well educated, shrewd, maybe even brilliant in her ability to acquire manuscripts and artwork for the Pierpont Morgan Library. I would have liked more about how the library became open to the public, and about her directorship in her later life. The authors' notes at the end of the book were more interesting. I get that this is fiction, but I think they took too many liberties, and I found myself questioning much of the story.

Still reading Among the Janeites which is a fascinating look at the world of Jane Austen fandom.

And in October I will be starting a three-month read of ...And Ladies of the Club. Won't finish that until the end of the year though.

>54 WelshBookworm: May I ask what the alleged dangerous secret was? In spoiler text of course.

May i

>55 EGBERTINA: Well, I don't think it is a secret now - she was black, passing as white.

>57 WelshBookworm: oh thank u

Last month, I finally read my choice for this month, The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson. Usually I don't post my whole review here, but I do it in this case because I don't know how to shorten it.

There seem to be so many World War Two novels with bookish themes these days, and while they all have lovely covers, I am a bit wary of them at the same time. This was the first one I tried - and I must say that I absolutely loved it, and it has set a high standard for any other ones I might read!

The story is set on Jersey during the occupation, a topic which I did not know much about before reading this. Bea works at the post office, while her best friend Grace is the town's librarian. During the course of the occupation they both fight the Germans in their own ways, trying to make the most of their situation, although they also experience a lot of dangers, heartbreak and suffering.

The novel is a real page turner and I could hardly set it aside. There are dark topics as the author does not shy away from describing the dire situation of the island's residents under the Nazis. But there are also bright moments, and they are provided by books more often than not. A love of literature really shines through this novel and it shows how books can give hope and solace, and also how they connect people.

Although the novel covers several years, a lot happens throughout these years, which sometimes seems a bit much for two protagonists. It felt a bit like that during the novel, but I had to rethink this notion to some extent when I read the appendix. Although, of course, in a novel the action needs to be somewhat condensed and thickened to provide a plot, most of the stories (not the book club part, though) are based on true stories that the author discovered during her research, and I cannot fault her for including as much as possible.

This leads me to the appendix of the book, which is amazing and which I did not expect in a historical novel such as this. It is about sixty pages long in my kindle edition, and it features a lot of background information from the extensive research that the author did on site in Jersey. You learn more about what actually happened at the post office in Jersey as a form of resistance, true stories that found their way into the novel, information on the Jersey inhabitants during the occupation, many photographs, recollections of interviews with contemporary witnesses, lists for further reading and even a small travel guide of World War Two sites on Jersey. It is a fascinating and humbling insight into a place that is often overlooked when it comes to the vast topic of World War Two. The Channel Islands had a special role and a particular fate as they were small islands and so close to France. Resistance was much harder and much more dangerous because of this situation, yet there were people who tried their best and risked their lives to fight the Germans even in small ways and to help others under the harshest of conditions. This book pays tribute to them and while I love the idea of the bookclub and all the literary themes, it would even have been an outstanding novel without that.