A Book in Hand Is Worth Two in the Library: Quotations on Books and Librarianship

by Les Harding

Over the years, political leaders, literary figures, philosophers, and yes, the most quoted person of all, "anonymous," have had a lot to say about libraries and books. Some are "Blessings upon Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books"- Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881); some "What is responsible for the success of many works is the rapport between the mediocrity of the author's ideas and the mediocrity of the public's"- Nicholas Chamfort (1741-1794). And a few are surprisingly "A library makes me sick"- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Collected here are hundreds of quotes about libraryland. Subjects include libraries and librarians, books and bookworms, borrowing and lending, censorship, reading, writing, education, and more. Augmenting the text are the author's own irreverent and witty observations about the quotes and their subjects.

127 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1994

Reviews

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of fun to read, and very informative too!