Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books (First Edition)

Leah Price (editor); Alison Bechdel (contributor); Stephen Carter (contributor); Junot Diaz (contributor); Jonathan Lethem Alison (contributor); Claire Messud & James Wood Alison Bechdel (contributors); et al.

ISBN 10: 0300170920 / ISBN 13: 9780300170924

Published by Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011

About this Item

First printing (with full number line). Very fine/issued without jacket. A pristine unread copy.

Seller Inventory # Yale-2020-11

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books (First Edition)
• Publisher: Yale University Press, New Haven
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300170920
• ISBN 13: 9780300170924
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: New
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket

About this title

Synopsis

This gorgeous second volume in the popular Unpacking My Library series explores the bookshelves of favorite novelists

As words and stories are increasingly disseminated through digital means, the significance of the book as object—whether pristine collectible or battered relic—is growing as well. Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books spotlights the personal libraries of thirteen favorite novelists who share their collections with readers. Stunning photographs provide full views of the libraries and close-ups of individual volumes: first editions, worn textbooks, pristine hardcovers, and childhood companions.

In her introduction, Leah Price muses on the history and future of the bookshelf, asking what books can tell us about their owners and what readers can tell us about their collections. Supplementing the photographs are Price's interviews with each author, which probe the relation of writing to reading, collecting, and arranging books. Each writer provides a list of top ten favorite titles, offering unique personal histories along with suggestions for every bibliophile.

Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books features the personal libraries of Alison Bechdel, Stephen Carter, Junot Díaz, Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Pinker, Lev Grossman and Sophie Gee, Jonathan Lethem, Claire Messud and James Wood, Philip Pullman, Gary Shteyngart, and Edmund White.

About the Author

Leah Price is professor of English at Harvard University. She is the author of The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel, Literary Secretaries/Secretarial Culture, and How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain. She writes on old and new media for the New York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, and the Boston Globe.