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	"Basbanes, Nicholas A. - A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World - PT Code:0060580801PTN Price: $11.96 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Paperback. New. List $ 15.95. [HarperCollins Publishers] 464 pages. From the Publisher In A Splendor of Letters, Nicholas A. Basbanes continues the lively, richly anecdotal exploration of book people, places, and culture he began in 1995 with A Gentle Madness (a finalist that year for the National Book Critics Circle Award) and expanded in 2001 with Patience & Fortitude, a companion work that prompted the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer David McCullough to proclaim him ""the leading authority of books about books."" In this beautifully packaged edition, Basbanes brings to a close his wonderful trilogy on the remarkable world of books and bibliophiles. "
	"Basbanes, Nicholas A. - Among the Gently Mad: Perspectives and Strategies for the Book-Hunter in th Code:0805051597HCN Price: $18.75 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Hardcover. New. List $ 25. [Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated] 272 pages. From the Publisher A field guide for the modern book collector From the author of A Gentle Madness-a book with more than seventy thousand copies in print that delighted bibliophiles everywhere-comes a twenty-first-century guide to book collecting that deals with both the traditional methods of acquisition and the electronic tools now available on the Internet. Sharing the superb insight he has gathered from booksellers over the years, Nicholas Basbanes offers a refresher course on the fundamentals that endure, while questioning certain practices of doubtful validity. Topics include how to determine if a book is a first edition, how to spot book club editions, the importance of dust jackets, scouting the flea markets, how to work the book fairs, and the importance of handling the goods, as well as discussing less tangible issues like spotting trends and having a focus. Then he takes a long look at the pros and cons of Internet buying, illuminating how you can use these electronic tools to your advantage and making this the book no modern collector will want to be without. "
	"Basbanes, Nicholas A. - Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World - HC Code:0060593237HCN Price: $22.46 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Hardcover. New. List $ 29.95. [HarperCollins Publishers] 384 pages. From the Publisher ""Inspired by a landmark exhibition mounted by the British Museum in 1963 to celebrate five eventful centuries of the printed word, Nicholas A. Basbanes offers a consideration of writings that have ""made things happen"" in the world, works that have both nudged the course of history and fired the imagination of countless influential people."" ""In his fifth work to examine a specific aspect of book culture, Basbanes also asks what we can know about such figures as John Milton, Edward Gibbon, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Adams, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Henry James, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller - even the notorious Marquis de Sade and Adolf Hitler - by knowing what they have read. He shows how books that many of these people have consulted, in some cases annotated with their marginal notes, can offer tantalizing clues to the evolution of their character and the development of their thought."" Taking the concept one step further, Basbanes profiles some of the most articulate readers of our time - David McCullough, Harold Bloom, Robert Fagles, Robert Coles, Helen Vendler, Elaine Pagels, Daniel Aaron, Christopher Ricks, Matthew Bruccoli, and Perri Klass among them - who discuss such relevant concepts as literary canons, classic works in translation, the timelessness of poetry, the formation of sacred texts, and the power of literature to train physicians, nurture children, and rehabilitate criminal offenders. "
	"Basbanes, Nicholas A. - Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Book Code:0805061762PTN Price: $15.00 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Paperback. New. List $ 20. [Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated] 638 pages. From the Publisher The passion to possess books has never been more widespread than it is today; indeed, obsessive book collecting remains the only hobby to have a disease named after it. A Gentle Madness, finalist for the 1995 National Book Critics Circle award, is an adventure among the afflicted. Richly anecdotal and fully documented, it combines the perspective of historical research with the immediacy of investigative journalism. Above all, it is a celebration of books and the people who have revered, gathered, and preserved them over the centuries. "
	"Burton, Betsy - King's English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller - HCN" Code:1586856871HCN Price: $18.71 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Hardcover. New. List $ 24.95. [Gibbs Smith] 301 pages. From the Publisher ""This is a book of passion, of intellectual integrity, of right ethics--the fascinating story of a woman living a life that has made an indelible difference to all of us who read."" --Mark Spragg, Author of An Unfinished Life ""The King's English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller is for book lovers inside or outside the book business."" --Cathy Langer, Tattered Cover Bookstore ""Part memoir, part literary history, part social commentary, this book is a smart and insightful look at life inside an independent bookstore."" --Terry Tempest Williams, Author of The Open Space of Democracy ""Of its kind, and for all it tells us of today's literary world, Burton's revealing, riveting book has no rival."" --Jeannette Haien, Author of The All of It "
	"Buzbee, Lewis - The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, A History - HCN" Code:1555974503HCN Price: $12.75 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Hardcover. New. List $ 17. [Graywolf Press] 180 pages. From the Publisher November, a dark, rainy Tuesday, late afternoon. This is my ideal time to be in a bookstore. The shortened light of the afternoon and the idleness and hush of the hour gather everything close, the shelves and the books and the few other customers who graze head-bent in the narrow aisles. I've come to find a book. In The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, Buzbee, a former bookseller and sales representative, celebrates the unique experience of the bookstore-the smell and touch of books, getting lost in the deep canyons of shelves, and the silent community of readers. He shares his passion for books, which began with ordering through The Weekly Reader in grade school. Interwoven throughout is a fascinating historical account of the bookseller's trade-from the great Alexandria library with an estimated one million papyrus scrolls to Sylvia Beach's famous Paris bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, which led to the extraordinary effort to publish and sell James Joyce's Ulysses during the 1920s. Rich with anecdotes, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop is the perfect choice for those who relish the enduring pleasures of spending an afternoon finding just the right book. "
	"Corrigan, Maureen - Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books - PTN" Code:0375709037PTN Price: $10.46 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Paperback. New. List $ 13.95. [Knopf Publishing Group] 240 pages. From the Publisher As book reviewer for NPR's Fresh Air and contributor to many publications, Maureen Corrigan literally reads for a living. For as long as she can remember, books have been at the center of her life, a never-failing source of astonishment, hard truths, new horizons, and welcome companionship. Now Corrigan has added a volume of her own to the shelf of classics, by reading her life of reading with all the attention to complexity, wit, and intelligence that any good book--or life--deserves. Part memoir, part coming-of-age story, and part reflection on favorite and influential books, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading views the world through an open book. From her unpretentious girlhood in the working-class neighborhood of Sunnyside, Queens, to her bemused years in an Ivy League Ph.D. program, from the whirl of falling in love and marrying (a fellow bookworm, of course), to the ordeal of adopting a baby overseas, Corrigan has always had a book at her side. We read this life in reverse as Corrigan begins the book as a ""professional reader"" always conscious of the many people, like her own mother, who don't ""get"" the power of reading, and we end up as a fly on the wall of this only child in Queens, transported to exciting yet threatening worlds beyond her small apartment, a block from the #7 subway. Corrigan's references range from Richard Wright to Philip Roth to Chekhov, but certain themes emerge. Corrigan subverts the classic ""man conquers mountain or ocean or battlefield"" genre by juxtaposing it with what she calls ""female extreme adventure novels""--books such as Charlotte Bront?'s Jane Eyre, the Collected Poems of Stevie Smith, and Anna Quindlen's Black and Blue, whichfeature women quietly fighting for their lives. Hard-boiled detective stories that cloak social criticisms of work and family beneath their protagonist's trench coat---Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, Sara Paretsky's mysteries--are another abiding passion. More surprising, and perhaps more revealing, is her taste for tales of Catholic martyrs and secular saints, a holdover from her days in parochial school that left an indelible impression. Moving from page to life and back again, Corrigan writes ultimately of fashioning a complicated, sometimes contradictory self out of her class background, her classroom teaching, and her own classics of literature; a list of favorite books is also included. In Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading, Maureen Corrigan invites us to accompany her on the journey of a lifetime. "
	"Dirda, Michael - An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland - HCN" Code:0393057569HCN Price: $18.71 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Hardcover. New. List $ 24.95. [Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.] 335 pages. From the Publisher A funny, wistful memoir by a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic that recalls the charm of Growing Up and the tenderness of One Writer's Beginnings.""All that kid wants to do is stick his nose in a book,"" Michael Dirda's steelworker father used to complain, worried about his son's passion for reading. In An Open Book, one of the most delightful memoirs to emerge in years, the acclaimed literary journalist Michael Dirda re-creates his boyhood in rust-belt Ohio, first in the working-class town of Lorain, then at Oberlin College. In addition to his colorful family and friends, An Open Book also features the great writers and fictional characters who fueled Dirda's imagination: from Green Lantern to Sherlock Holmes, from Candy to Proust. The result is an affectionate homage to small-town America-summer jobs, school fights, sweepstakes contests, and first dates-as well as a paean to what could arguably be called the last great age of reading. About the Author: : Michael Dirda winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, is a writer and senior editor for the Washington Post Book World. His previous book is Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments. "
	"Dirda, Michael - An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland - PTN" Code:0393326144PTN Price: $11.21 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Paperback. New. List $ 14.95. [Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.] 335 pages. From the Publisher ""All that kid wants to do is stick his nose in a book,"" Michael Dirda's steelworker father used to complain, worried about his son's passion for reading. In An Open Book, one of the most delightful memoirs to emerge in years, the acclaimed literary journalist Michael Dirda re-creates his boyhood in rust-belt Ohio, first in the working-class town of Lorain, then at Oberlin College. In addition to his colorful family and friends, An Open Book also features the great writers and fictional characters who fueled Dirda's imagination: from Green Lantern to Sherlock Holmes, from Candy to Proust. The result is an affectionate homage to small-town America-summer jobs, school fights, sweepstakes contests, and first dates-as well as a paean to what could arguably be called the last great age of reading. Author Biography: Michael Dirda winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, has written for the for the Washington Post Book World for more than twenty-five years. His previous book is Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland."
	"Dirda, Michael - Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life - PTN" Code:0805083383PTN Price: $9.00 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Paperback. New. List $ 12. [Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated] 192 pages. From the Publisher “As warm and stimulating as a library to which one returns again and again.” —Chicago Tribune (Editor's Choice) While books contain insights into our selves and the world, it takes a conversation—between the author and the reader, or between two readers—to bring them fully to life. Drawing on sources as diverse as Dr. Seuss and Simone Weil, P. G. Wodehouse and Isaiah Berlin, Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Michael Dirda shows how the wit, wisdom, and enchantment of the written word informs and enriches nearly every aspect of life, from education and work to love and death. Organized by significant life events and abounding with quotations from great writers and thinkers, Book by Book showcases Dirda's capacious love for and understanding of books. Favoring showing as much as telling, Dirda draws us deeper into the classics, as well as lesser-known works of literature, history, and philosophy, always with an eye to how we might better understand our lives. "
	"Dirda, Michael - Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments - HCN" Code:0253338247HCN Price: $18.71 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Hardcover. New. List $ 24.95. [Indiana University Press] 208 pages. From the Publisher Intimate, humorous, and insightful, Readings is a collection of classic essays and reviews by Michael Dirda, book critic of the Washington Post and winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. From a first reading of Beckett and Faulkner at the feet of an inspirational high-school English teacher to a meeting of the P. G. Wodehouse Society, from an obsession with Nabokov's Lolita to the discovery of the Japanese epic The Tale of Genji, these essays chronicle a lifetime of literary enjoyment. About the Author: : Michael Dirda is a writer and senior editor for the Washington Post Book World. For three years he was a board member of the National Book Critics Circle. He lives in Washington, DC. "
	"Dorris, Michael - The Most Wonderful Books: Writers on Discovering the Pleasures of Reading - PTN" Code:1571312161PTN Price: $11.21 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? Paperback. New. List $ 14.95. [Milkweed Editions] 297 pages.
	"Everitt, Charles B. - Adventures of a Treasure Hunter: A Rare Bookman in Search of American History Code:091663812XPTN Price: $9.38 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? Paperback. New. List $ 12.5. [Meyerbooks] 296 pages.
	"Fadiman, Anne - Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader - PTN" Code:0374527229PTN Price: $8.25 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Paperback. New. List $ 11. [Farrar, Straus and Giroux] 176 pages. From the Publisher For Anne Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's twenty-two-volume set of Trollope (""My Ancestral Castles"") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections (""Marrying Libraries""), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proofreading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading aloud. There is even a foray into pure literary gluttony-Charles Lamb liked buttered muffin crumbs between the leaves, and Fadiman knows of more than one reader who literally consumes page corners. Perfectly balanced between humor and erudition, Ex Libris establishes Fadiman as one of our finest contemporary essayists. Anne Fadiman is the editor of The American Scholar. Recipient of a National Magazine Award for Reporting, she has written for Civilization, Harper's, Life, and The New York Times, among other publications. She lives in New York City. * ""A terrifically entertaining collection of personal essays about books . . . heartening, tender, wise, and hilarious."" (Patsy Baudoin, The Boston Book * ) * ""A smart little book that one can happily welcome into the family and allow to start growing old."" (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times) "
	"Fadiman, Anne - Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love - HCN" Code:0374249423HCN Price: $16.50 Rating: none Quantity in Basket: none
Add to wish list? "Hardcover. New. List $ 22. [Farrar, Straus and Giroux] 244 pages. From the Publisher Is a book the same book—or a reader the same reader—the second time around? The seventeen authors in this witty and poignant collection of essays all agree on the answer: Never. The editor of Rereadings is Anne Fadiman, and readers of her bestselling book Ex Libris will find this volume especially satisfying. Her chosen authors include Sven Birkerts, Allegra Goodman, Vivian Gornick, Patricia Hampl, Phillip Lopate, and Luc Sante; the objects of their literary affections range from Pride and Prejudice to Sue Barton, Student Nurse. These essays are not conventional literary criticism; they are about relationships. Rereadings reveals at least as much about the reader as about the book: each is a miniature memoir that focuses on that most interesting of topics, the protean nature of love. And as every bibliophile knows, no love is more life-changing than the love of a book. "