A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World - Hardcover

Basbanes, Nicholas A

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060082879 ISBN 13: 9780060082871

Publisher: Harper, 2003

Synopsis

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."

Basbanes now offers a consideration of the many pressing issues that surround the role of books in contemporary society, such as the willful destruction of books and libraries in Sarajevo, Tibet, and Cambodia, and the spirited efforts to restore them. The matter of "discards" at various libraries takes on an entirely new dimension as well, with fully researched stories about the kind of attitudes that may lead to the loss of “last copies” of important works.

In vivid detail, Basbanes examines the many materials that have been used over the centuries to record information -- among them clay tablets, papyrus scrolls, slabs of stone, palm leaves, animal skins, and hammered sheets of gold and copper. Also discussed are the various debates that continue to rage about preservation, which may mean saving and storing books on paper indefinitely, or as electronic data, which are by nature ephemeral.

In this beautifully packaged edition, Nicholas Basbanes brings to a close his wonderful trilogy on the remarkable world of books and bibliophiles.

About this title

About the Author

Nicholas A. Basbanes has worked as an award-winning investigative reporter, a literary editor, and a nationally syndicated columnist. The author of five books, he also writes a regular column for Fine Books & Collections magazine and lectures widely on book-related issues. He and his wife, Constance, live in Massachusetts.

Reviews

The final volume in an acclaimed trilogy for bibliophiles (after A Gentle Madness and Patience & Fortitude) focuses on efforts to preserve books and other printed matter from the ravages of deterioration, destruction and obsolescence. The historical range here is expansive, encompassing texts by classical authors known today only through secondhand descriptions, William Blake's self-published illustrated volumes and used book sales at modern libraries. Even the most ancillary data have the power to fascinate: who knew, for example, that the Roman emperor Claudius was also probably the last scholar fluent in the language of the ancient Etruscans? But the research skills Basbanes displays are matched by the lively quality of his interviews, like an extended conversation with a Sarajevo librarian who saved thousands of Croatian volumes from the Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign. Other chapters, which describe how American libraries are regularly pruned of old books by less violent means, owe a heavy (and acknowledged) debt to Nicholson Baker's Double Fold, with minor updates to recap new trends in preservation. A final section elaborates on the potential threat of the e-book, but remains optimistic that love of the physical act of reading will enable the printed page to prevail. Even those who find the evidence unconvincing should find themselves compelled by story after story on the salvation of books. Basbanes's longtime fans will rejoice at more of the same, while new readers will no doubt be swiftly caught up in the book-loving spirit.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Basbanes' trilogy about the book world, whose earlier titles were A Gentle Madness (1995), concerning book collectors, and Patience and Fortitude (2001), about libraries, culminates in this eclectic ramble through the perpetual problem of preservation. Fiscal and physical limitations exacerbate the problem of determining which materials to save for posterity, while the malicious destruction of books and documents continues, as Basbanes lamentably recounts in the Khmer Rouge's obliteration of Cambodia's libraries, to be as hazardous to cultural heritage as it was when Rome razed Carthage. Against the threats of time and vandalism labor the preservationists, who are Basbanes' heroes. Their particular projects, for example, collecting and making durable copies of Tibetan literature, dot his narrative. Basbanes takes multiple directions in this work, from accounts about how the writings of antiquity have been precariously transmitted to the present to interviews with figures in the computer, publishing, and library professions. Yet, throughout, focus is maintained on the preservation issue through Basbanes' unabashed bibliophilism. Preservationists will be the best audience for this work. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060082879
• ISBN 13: 9780060082871
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464