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7 x 10 inches. cloth with dust jacket. xii, 540 pages. First edition, third printing with corrections. Books About Books Book of the Year Award winner, 2023 "From the get-go, two things are obvious: one, Reid Byers has done his research, and two, Reid Byers loves books and having books in the home. the book is never a dry read. Its contents are sliced and chunked so nicely that there is no chance of getting bored. it is a book written for todays book collectors and bibliophiles." Read the article here: https://booksaboutbooks.com/the-private-library-book-of-the-year-2023/ Featured in The New York Times, alongside an interview with author Reid Byers, in the article "How Many Books Does It Take to Make a Place Feel Like Home?" ". a profusely illustrated, detail-crammed, Latin-strewn and yet remarkably unstuffy book . goes to the heart of why physical books continue to beguile us." - Julie Lasky, The New York Times The Private Library has been listed on The Washington Post's 2021 list of "50 notable works of nonfiction" "Beautifully designed, Byers' 500-page masterwork lays out how cultures from antiquity to the present created welcoming, comfortable spaces to house books." - Michael Dirda, The Washington Post ".full of insightful descriptions and assessments.a great delight." - John Edwards, SHARP News, February 2024 ".certainly a major piece of bibliographic and architectural research. It wears its scholarship lightly for the text is lively, informative, thoroughly documented, and entertaining throughout.Byers takes readers on a magical journey through private libraries from Antiquity to the present day." - Peter H. Reid, Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, 2023 "In The Private Library, Reid Byers excavates the throughline of the domestic library from the earliest storerooms of clay tablets in the Bronze Age to those of the present and future containing a hybrid of digital and physical materials. The connective thread among these spaces for book storage and reading is, for Byers, the timeless desire to feel "book-wrapt" (1), the author's term for spaces in which books can be seen and browsed. The chronological structure, accessible tenor, and playful asides position the work in the unique category of an enjoyable reference text that might be read for pleasure as much as for scholarship. Byers's passion for the subject is likely to be reciprocated by its readers, who could include book workers, architects, home renovators, students, and anyone curious about the history of information and design." - Katherine Prater, The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Volume 118, Number 1 "With an unmatched eye for detail and a jolly sense of humour, The Private Library takes us through thousands of years of the material culture of homes, books, and readers into private places meant for pottering and study." - Risa De Rege, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada "Byers ambitiously guides the reader around the world and through many centuries without inflicting a dull sentence.The Private Library is a rare achievement of informing interested amateurs without condescension while also offering valuable insights to librarians. This is worthy of shelf space in any library, private or public." - Mandy Webster, Libraries: Culture, History, and Society, Volume 7, Issue 2 "The Private Library is one of those books that, when you turn the last of its 540 pages, makes you sigh with pleasure. This densely informative, thought-provoking and entertaining volume proves as stimulating an experience as the room it studies and celebrates." - William Butts, Manuscripts, Vol. 75, No. 4 (Fall 2023) "Reid Byers' opus magnum on private libraries is everything it says in the title, but above all it is about the ways people contrive to have their books about them. Byers wears his considerable scholarship lightly. So sprightly and charming is his style that I might call this light reading, were it not that the physical book weighs.
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