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Phantoms on the Bookshelves

Jacques Bonnet,

Siân Reynolds (Translator)

James Salter (Introduction)

3.62 · Rating details · 749 ratings · 147 reviews

This enchanting study on the art of living with books considers how our personal libraries reveal our true nature: far more than just places, they are living labyrinths of our innermost feelings. The author, a lifelong accumulator of books both ancient and modern, lives in a house large enough to accommodate his many thousands of books, as well as overspill from the librar ...more

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Hardcover, 133 pages

Published October 1st 2010 by Quercus Publishing (first published 2008)

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3.62 ·

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· 749 ratings · 147 reviews

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Sep 18, 2015 Teresa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: n-frança, 5e, g-não-ficção

"Depois do prazer de possuir livros, não há outro que seja mais doce do que falar sobre eles."
Charles Nodier

Estão num quarto que se foi transformando em biblioteca; num outro onde durmo um pouco; na sala onde vivo; e até já invadiram a cozinha e a casa de banho. E muitos em casa alheia...
Em estantes; em mesas; em armários; em prateleiras; em cadeiras...ainda não nos roupeiros, nem nas gavetas.
São cerca de dois milhares e meio que todos os dias clamam por mais e mais...
Vivem livres, desorganizado ...more

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Aug 30, 2016 Rita rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: beautiful-covers, na-biblioteca-municipal

Antes de mais quero agradecer à minha mãe e a uma bibliotecária da biblioteca municipal de Torres Vedras por me terem dado coragem para trazer este livro (Ando a ler o Eldest e outro livro ao mesmo tempo, então tentei resistir ao encanto de trazer este).
Eu deparei-me com este livro "por mero acaso", o seu título chamou-me desde logo à atenção, como quem não quer a coisa aproximei-me e fui vê-lo.
A minha mãe leu a sinopse e disse que era a minha cara.
É mesmo a minha cara e a de qualquer apaixonado ...more

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Jul 14, 2017 Pequete rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: susana

3,5
Este é um daqueles "livros sobre livros" e isso, para mim, é meio caminho andado para gostar. Não achei todos os capítulos igualmente interessantes, há muitas referências a escritores franceses que não conheço, mas ainda assim, foi uma leitura bastante agradável. Obrigada, S.!

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Sep 25, 2015 Arun Divakar rated it liked it

A habit I have picked up of late is to read books about books and also about people who love books. It is like finding a group of people with whom you can feel utterly at home. The language these authors speak and the ideas they have about books are ones with which I could find similar wavelengths . For want of a better word, I would call this book porn ! Fantasizing about all the books you could read and also basking in the eloquence of authors who could speak the language of the books in the m A habit I have picked up of late is to read books about books and also about people who love books. It is like finding a group of people with whom you can feel utterly at home. The language these authors speak and the ideas they have about books are ones with which I could find similar wavelengths . For want of a better word, I would call this book porn ! Fantasizing about all the books you could read and also basking in the eloquence of authors who could speak the language of the books in the most perfect fashion – I suppose this summarizes the whole idea behind reading such books. And like porn, it is almost always fantasy for you will never finish reading all these books in a lifetime. Jacques Bonnet has a dignified bearing when talking about reading that makes him quite an interesting speaker. You can imagine sitting with him in a library lined with books from floor to ceiling and almost all these books bear the marks of having being read from cover to cover. You share a drink with him and talk late into the night about how books built his world. Reading this book is like having a heart-to-heart dialog with a man to whom reading was as important as sustaining life through the drawing of breath.

Bonnet writes :

I am capable of reading all day, and carrying on late into the night, and to find it restful after a busy day. Reading tires me out as little as it tires fish to swim or birds to fly.

There have been instances where I have mentioned variations of this statement to people (who apparently never loved a book !) and have met with wide eyed looks. But in this site, there would be a lot of people (who conversely love books a great deal !) who can find a sync with such a thought. Bonnet is someone who has grown up on stories and later also found an attraction to books on music and photography too. Naturally, a love for the arts followed and Bonnet was on his way to being an incorrigible reading addict. To him, the formative years of childhood went like :

The tedium of childhood could be fought only by two things : sports and reading. And reading was something like the river flowing through the Garden of Eden, its four watercourses heading off towards the four horizons. Reading scorns distance, and could transport me instantly into the most faraway countries with the strangest customs.

Such men and women are always in the danger of going astray in the eyes of the society. For eventually, one book will lead to another and then to another and they can fill your mind with all sorts of crazy ideas. These kind of people never listen to those who call themselves authorities, are sceptical about a lot of things that are taken for granted and even more dangerously have a perspective all of their own. In short : they are a nuisance ! This could be one reason why books can be called the most dangerous of all weapons. Bonnet is one such person whose mind was sharpened by countless whetstones of books acquired over a lifetime of reading. We get almost all the points covered in other books of this genre : how reading formed a life, a life of being a bibliophile, how books led to interesting people and ideas and why it is an impossible habit to part with.

Unless you are someone fluent in French (I am not), this book will not add to your to-read list. Most of what Bonnet discusses are works in the French language and the ones in English are almost all of them obscure volumes long since out of print. The point of the whole book however is the act of reading and not about books themselves as far as I could gather. Recommended for the love of books !

About being a bibliophile :

The bibliophile is, after all, like a Sultan or a Khan who has countless wives already but another two or three are always irresistible. Reading is a pastime and can be regarded as such, but it can also be supremely important.
...more

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Dec 20, 2016 Susana rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: franceses, não-ficção, biográficos

2,5 estrelas, arredondadas para cima porque é um livro sobre... livros.

No princípio até estava a gostar, mas depois comecei a aborrecer-me com tantas referências, maioritariamente relativas a escritores franceses e completas com o nome do(a) tradutor(a) francês, editora (francesa) e ano de publicação.

Embora haja algumas notas úteis do tradutor, faltam outras tantas, pelo menos para quem não saiba francês.

Para o fim pareceram-me até despropositadas algumas "anedotas" relativas a bibliotecas ou ao ...more

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Apr 13, 2014 Carla rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biblioteca-pessoal, 2015

Um livro que começa bem com o relato da candidatura de Fernando Pessoa em 1932 ao lugar de conservador-bibliotecário no Museu Condes de Castro Guimarães em Cascais e que se prolonga numa toada deliciosa.

Muitas vezes dei por mim a rever-me nas considerações de Jacques Bonnet sobre os livros, os leitores, os escritores, os hábitos de leitura ou a forma de organização das bibliotecas pessoais. E sobretudo, assentindo sempre ao quadro apresentado dos “viciados” em livros, dos que PRECISAM de viver r ...more

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Sep 24, 2016 Caroline added it

Shelves: owned

So so. Its main benefit is giving me reinforcement to smile benignly at those who question my sanity when they see the bookshelves (more arriving next week; the benefit and 'cost ' of volunteering at the friends of the library where books are almost free). Bonnet has 40,000, so I'm a lightweight.

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Jan 02, 2014 Tosh rated it it was amazing

What a lovely little meditation on the beauty of living in a world full of books. Not only that but the author has three of my all time authors within these pages. Boris Vian, Osamu Dazai and Albert Cossery. So one is surrounded by great taste!

He also comments on the peculiar nature of collecting books as well as the human nature needing these objects to surround us. Without a doubt my library is very much my self portrait. And this book is now part of my collection!

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Jun 17, 2011 Marleen rated it it was amazing

I received this book from and reviewed it for New Book Magazine.

This is a book about books, written by a man in the middle of a life-long love affair with books, who has accumulated approximately 40.000 copies in his house.
This is a book about having such a personal library, acquiring the books and the need to keep them, the intricacies involved in organising the shelves and the frustrations associated with not being able to find a certain copy of a certain title. This is a book for those who lo ...more

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May 27, 2013 Caren rated it liked it

Shelves: adult-nonfiction

If you love books, physical books, then this slender volume, from someone who shares your passion, will fly right into your heart. I felt a sense of recognition from his opening quote: "Some people are fond of horses, others of wild animals; in my case, I have been possessed since childhood by a prodigious desire to buy and own books." --Julian the Apostate. The author has a personal library of 40,000 volumes, so you might say he is a bibliophile extraordinaire. He discusses the problems that co If you love books, physical books, then this slender volume, from someone who shares your passion, will fly right into your heart. I felt a sense of recognition from his opening quote: "Some people are fond of horses, others of wild animals; in my case, I have been possessed since childhood by a prodigious desire to buy and own books." --Julian the Apostate. The author has a personal library of 40,000 volumes, so you might say he is a bibliophile extraordinaire. He discusses the problems that come with such a large collection, such as how to organize and house them. He notes that it becomes difficult to think of moving to a different house, since it would entail moving so many books. The author is French, so this book is a translation, and I suspect it may have lost a fraction of its impact in the translation. For one thing, most of the books he mentions having in his collection are French titles that are unfamiliar to me. Still, there are enough points of common cause to keep someone with this "affliction" reading. For example, he notes that often new guests at his home ask, "Have you read them all?" How often I have had that same question posed to me! Of course not! Part of the joy in being surrounded by books is their potential. Or, as the author puts it: "...It's complicated. There are some books I have read and then forgotten (quite a lot of those) and some which I have only flicked through but which I remember. So I may not have read them all, but I have turned their pages, sniffed them, handled them physically. After that, the book might take one of three possible directions (I'm speaking now of books I have chosen or acquired, that is in some way selected, rather than books received). They may be read immediately, or pretty soon; they may be put off for reading later -- and that could mean weeks, months and even years, if circumstances are particularly unfavorable, or the number of incoming books is too great -- in what I call my 'to read' pile. Or they may go straight on to the shelf. Even those books have been 'read' in a sense: they are classified somewhere in my mind, as they are in my library. They will serve their turn one day, I don't know when or what for just now, but they're not sitting there by chance...." (pgs. 48-49)

The title is apparently a bit of a play on words, as the heading to chapter 9 (pg.110) indicates:
fantome :[phantom] A sheet or card inserted to mark the place of a book removed from a library shelf, or a document which has been borrowed. (Petit Larousse)
The author includes many anecdotes about other book collectors in other times and places. He says two personality quirks lead to accumulating many books: either you are an avid collector and/or a manic reader. From page 26, here is one example of a collector:
"...Galantaris quotes the case of Sir Richard Heber (1774-1833) who owned 300,000 books divided between five different libraries in England and on the continent, each of which has spread itself over five different lodgings: 'The books were omnipresent, forming veritable forests, with paths, avenues, groves and tracks, in which one kept bumping into piles and columns of books spilling out from shelves and heaped up on tables, chairs and the floor.'
I have a feeling a modern person would have one of two responses to this story. Either he would be aghast and ready to call in the "Hoarders" TV show crew, or he would be intrigued and envious, wishing to walk through those paths to see what was there. If you are of the former mind, this is certainly not the book for you; if you have the latter impulse, you will be reading this book with a smile of recognition on your face. ...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Sian Lile-Pastore rated it liked it

Shelves: books-about-books

the author of this book has a library containing 40,000 volumes!! there's lots in here about other collectors - one guy's apartment became so filled with books that he moved out to an apartment opposite and kept his booklined one as an office. Another story is a Brazilian guy who spent 17 years looking for a particular book and finally flew to france to pick up a copy, and then left it on the plane!! (it's ok, he mananged to get it back).

This was orignally written in french, and most of the book ...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Iris rated it really liked it

A beautiful homage to books and bibliomania. It's main theme is based on Borges "Paradise is library." The book is crammed with elegant aphorisms and remarkable anecdotes, like the description of a lithograph by Daumier called "the book-lover in heaven", which perfectly illustrates the fascination rarity holds for the bibliophile. It shows a man thumbing through a little book and explaining to another book-lover, "I can't tell you how happy I am ... I've just found the 1780 Amsterdam edition of ...more

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Sep 16, 2013 The Literary Chick rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, on-books

There is no joy akin to two bibliophiles finding each other. First, you see the sudden sharp look in the eye upon the suspicion that they may have found another of their own. Then the coded test, as one – affecting nonchalance – drops the name Pérez-Reverte. A lightning bolt links the eyes of both. Everyone else is cut out of the conversation. The two fairly resurrect in their own world that would-if-it-could-but-it-can’t have room for you.
Jacques Bonnet’s Phantoms On The Bookshelves, is a love There is no joy akin to two bibliophiles finding each other. First, you see the sudden sharp look in the eye upon the suspicion that they may have found another of their own. Then the coded test, as one – affecting nonchalance – drops the name Pérez-Reverte. A lightning bolt links the eyes of both. Everyone else is cut out of the conversation. The two fairly resurrect in their own world that would-if-it-could-but-it-can’t have room for you.
Jacques Bonnet’s Phantoms On The Bookshelves, is a love letter to bibliophiles everywhere and anyone who needs their own library, even if that library has but a single, treasured book. Bonnet divides “bibliomaniacs” into two basic categories: collectors and manic readers. Sometimes they overlap.

For the bibliomaniac, “the book is the precious material expression of a past emotion, or the chance of having one in years to come, and to get rid of it would bring the risk of a serious sense of loss. Whereas a collector frets obsessively about the books he does not yet possess, the fanatical reader worries about no longer owning those books – traces of his past or hopes for the future – which he has read once and may read again someday.”
Books grant an internal freedom. They enable one’s mind to travel, learn, and experience limitlessly. How can one be away from the very object that contains this magic? (Hello, my name is Marilyn and I am a bibliomaniac – Hi, Marilyn!)
Bonnet has a chapter devoted solely to the question that few bibliomaniacs ever feel totally satisfied with – Organizing The Bookshelves. By alphabet? By Color? By Genre? And there are some proximities that simply cannot be! What if your Vargas Llosa found itself next to your Garcia Marquez after the former blackened the eye of the latter for the way he found his good friend ‘consoling’ his wife after a marital spat? You could very well have a book brawl on your hands.

Bonnet understands the feeling of leafing through a book from your younger days and wondering, What the hell was I thinking? He never would have imagined that upon a re-reading of Anna Karenina, he would feel more touched by the plight of Anna’s cuckolded husband than by the passion of her feeling for Vronsky. The angels sang when someone else articulated what I felt when revisiting Tom Robbins’ Another Roadside Attraction that was my go-to book in college. And I was appalled at what my snarky younger self had said about Virginia Wolfe that got me thrown out of Perry Meisel’s class in NYU (although in all fairness, Perry Meisel had snark running through his veins and I secretly think he didn’t like when one of us spoiled brats gave it back to him).

Phantoms is quite simply, a gem of a book. And it is sure to give any true bibliophile the warm fuzzies by finding a kindred soul in Jacques Bonnet. A word on Pérez-Reverte, the secret code of bibliomaniacs. Read Dumas’ The Three Musketeers first. Or if you want to cheat, check out Johnny Depp in The Ninth Gate.

For more from The Literary Chick, check out www.theliterarychick.com ...more

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Jun 06, 2017 Krista rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 000

Ο Μποννέ γράφει: "[...] η βιβλιοθήκη αμβλύνει το πεπερασμένο των ανθρώπινων δυνατοτήτων: αντιπροσωπεύει τη συμπύκνωση του χρόνου και του χώρου."
Γράφει για τεράστιες βιβλιοθήκες με ξεχωριστές προσωπικότητες, για βιβλιοφάγους συγγραφείς, βιβλιομανείς ήρωες βιβλίων, βιβλιοθηκάριους υπαρκτούς και fiction. Κάθε σελίδα σου ξυπνά την επιθυμία να διαβάσεις κι άλλο ή να διαβάσεις κι άλλα από τα βιβλία στα οποία αναφέρεται ο συγγραφέας ή να μείνεις εκστατικός μπροστά στη δική σου βιβλιοθήκη αναθεωρώντας ...more

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Jan 29, 2017 Korynne rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I originally picked this up because it is a book about books, written by a man who owns 40,000 books in his private collection, and that really intrigued me.

After reading, I think this book would be good for a specific audience, and I'm sure that doesn't include me. For example, if you own thousands or tens of thousands of books, you will probably like this book and really connect with the author. If you are familiar with authors and literature from all times and from all countries, especially ...more

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Feb 09, 2017 Sam rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-about-books, biography, reference, philosophy, psychology, shorts, proper-books

I am so buying myself my own copy of this book. As a self confessed bibliophile and avid reader, I recognise my own joys, choices and dilemmas in every page from the constant issue of where to store one's books (went with the buy a house solution) to how to categorise and shelve them and the ever present questions from all those who just don't understand the power the printed page holds over us. Bonnet even manages to capture the thought and reasoning behind the need to keep hold of books, regar ...more

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May 31, 2011 Natalie rated it liked it

In Phantoms on the Bookshelves, Jacques Bonnet has set out to chronicle a lifetime of book collecting.
As a confirmed bibliophile myself, I was eager to read of another’s journey through the world of books.
Jacques certainly has some tales to tell of the many ways he has come across books, and the best ways in which to catalogue an enormous personal library, and I did find myself chuckling along at moments, recognising my own personal struggles with how best to organise my overflowing bookshelves. ...more

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Feb 18, 2014 Siria rated it liked it

Shelves: litcrit, nonfiction

Jacques Bonnet works in the French publishing industry, and between his profession and a self-professed case of bibliomania, he has a personal collection of some 40,000 books. Phantoms on the Bookshelves is a brief, breezy reflection on a lifetime spent book-collecting, sprinkled with quotations, aphorisms and anecdotes. Bonnet doesn't develop a lot of his ideas, and I disagreed with several of them, but this is nonetheless an enjoyable trifle.

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Mar 31, 2017 Tânia Tanocas rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017

Opinião aqui: http://baudatanocas.blogs.sapo.pt/bib...

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Jul 02, 2018 Rosemarie rated it it was ok

I found this a boring read. Not what I expected.

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Dec 10, 2014 Pat rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: francia

Leggere e scoprire di essere affetti da bibliomania. Ti dici che in fondo non è grave.
Il fatto è che, prima di arrivare alla scoperta, i libri si sono moltiplicati, e non capisci come sia potuto accadere.
Nell’attesa di trovare una risposta spuntano le domande: collezionista o lettore insaziabile?
Cosa ti ha spinto a scegliere quei libri? Una ragione ci sarà, o dieci cento mille…
Urge però trovargli una collocazione, quindi meglio rimandare la soluzione ai quesiti.
Sì, però… con quale criterio siste Leggere e scoprire di essere affetti da bibliomania. Ti dici che in fondo non è grave.
Il fatto è che, prima di arrivare alla scoperta, i libri si sono moltiplicati, e non capisci come sia potuto accadere.
Nell’attesa di trovare una risposta spuntano le domande: collezionista o lettore insaziabile?
Cosa ti ha spinto a scegliere quei libri? Una ragione ci sarà, o dieci cento mille…
Urge però trovargli una collocazione, quindi meglio rimandare la soluzione ai quesiti.
Sì, però… con quale criterio sistemare i volumi? Già perché catalogare una moltitudine di libri non è cosa semplice. Si aprono infinite possibilità, e se non ci credete, lo farete a partire da pagina 42.
A proposito: dove leggete? Quando? In che posizione? Cosa succede quando leggete?

Ho sorriso e persino riso, leggendo questo volumetto che parla di amore/attrazione per i libri. Ci sono spunti per nuove letture, aneddoti e citazioni interessanti.
Una per esempio mi costringerà a fare una ricerca perché, come la metto adesso che si dubita dell'esistenza di Louise Labé? Eh sì, si mormora che i suoi libri siano stati scritti da un gruppo di poeti lionesi, tutti frequentatori della tipografia di Jean de Tourne (M. Huchon, Louise Labé, une créature de papier, Droz, 2006). Ho già preparato cappello e lente per dare inizio all’indagine.

“La mia biblioteca è popolata da centinaia di migliaia di personaggi, alcuni reali e altri fittizi. Quelli reali sono i cosiddetti personaggi immaginari delle opere letterarie, quelli fittizi sono gli scrittori”.
Ho chiuso il libro, ho alzato gli occhi, ho sorriso e salutato tutti i personaggi che abitano la casa.

P.S. Leggo a pagina 115: “Jean Cocteau nel Journal racconta che nel 1950, reduce dall'aver visto I ragazzi terribili di Jean-Pierre Melville dove si sentiva un pezzo di Vivaldi per pianoforte, non riuscì a trovare in tutta Parigi, una sola incisione delle Quattro stagioni.”
Ora, non voglio fare la pignola, ma qui ho avuto un sobbalzo. Passi affermare che sentì un pezzo di Vivaldi suonato al pianoforte, ma non un pezzo di Vivaldi "per" pianoforte... ma questa è un'altra storia. Però però, Vivaldi non ha composto pezzi per tale strumento.
Nulla di grave, solo un leggero fastidio.

E non metto la quinta stella.

Leggetelo! Ne vale la pena! :-)
...more

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Dec 15, 2014 Claudia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: saggistica, sellerio

Breve trattato sulle librerie, o meglio, sui bibliomani che le nutrono, le ordinano, le spostano, le catalogano. Avevo il sospetto di essere affetta da bibliomania ma dopo aver letto questo divertente libricino della Sellerio ne ho proprio la conferma. Non sono arrivata ancora ai 40000 volumi dell'autore (beato lui), ne ho circa 3500 (uno speciale ringraziamento ai miei genitori), ma ho poco più di trent'anni, direi di avere tempo :)
È stato interessante leggere dei vari problemi di catalogazione ...more

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Aug 09, 2013 Keith Akers rated it really liked it

About halfway through this short book, I wondered to myself -- what, exactly, am I going to say about this book? What is its thesis, what is it trying to say, does it have a message, or anything?

This is a book about books, and the people who collect them, their collections, and what happens to them in the "real world" as a consequence of their attitude towards books. If you have ever felt that you have too many books, but can never summon the courage (or have the time) to reduce it to a managea ...more

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Jan 28, 2011 Célia | Estante de Livros rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: orig-biblioteca, local-outro, ano-2011, 4-stars, gen-nao-ficcao, ed-quetzal, p-franca

Cada vez gosto mais de ler sobre livros. Várias têm sido as leituras deste género ultimamente, e quando me cruzei com referências a este ensaio soube que, mais tarde ou mais cedo teria de o ler. Graças às BLX, acabou por ser bem cedo.

Este livro aborda essencialmente o tema da bibliofilia e de todas as consequências que esta traz. Encontra-se dividido em capítulos que abordam temas como as bibliomanias, a arrumação de livros, práticas de leitura ou a forma como o leitor sabe mais sobre as pessoas ...more

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Nov 14, 2015 Laura rated it really liked it

This small book is lovely - I felt like I had found a kindred spirit.

One of my favorite quotes: "How did these books get into my library? By a combination of chance, systematic curiosity, and impulses generated by conversations or reading."

And this: "My memory works best at being able to find quickly the book the information is in, rather than by loading itself with facts, dates and quotations which are sitting on my bookshelves."

And especially this: "Even when the book really has been read a ...more

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Jan 27, 2017 sevdah added it

I love books about books and very little persuasion was needed for me to read this other than to find it in a bookshop. As a bit of a collector myself, it's always great to read about other people's shelves, ways of organising, bookish stories, ways of reading. This book really is, as Jerome Garcin wrote in his review, "a promise of happiness". There was one thing however it would have benefited greatly from, if only it was absent - James Salter's introduction. Not only does he offer no insight ...more

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Sep 08, 2014 Anna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Έχω μεγάλη αδυναμία στα βιβλία που μιλάνε για βιβλία και αυτό εδώ ήταν συμπαθέστατο. Διαβάστηκε σε δόσεις γιατί βρέχει ονόματα και τίτλους. Μου άρεσε ιδιαίτερα το κεφάλαιο «Διαβάζοντας τις εικόνες» για τα βιβλία και καταλόγους τέχνης, που παραλληλίζει τις ράχες τους με τους ίδιους τους πίνακες που περιέχουν.

Μην το πιάσετε στα χέρια σας αν η βαρυφορτωμένη βιβλιοθήκη σας ήδη υποφέρει και δεν θέλετε να ανακαλύψετε ακόμα περισσότερα βιβλία που θέλετε οπωσδήποτε να διαβάσετε…

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Sep 28, 2012 Eoin rated it really liked it

Shelves: essay, nonfiction

A tiny, delightful book about the tiny delights of personal libraries. If your time is limited, The Library at Night is more comprehensive and contemplative, though this one is certainly worth its 144 pages. Worth it for the bibliography alone.

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Mar 19, 2015 Víctor rated it really liked it

Un tratado de xardineria para a planta trepadora que máis me gusta; os libros. Un libro sobre libros e sobre o clube dos bibliofilos <3

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Feb 07, 2019 Vishal Katariya rated it really liked it

Shelves: books

Fun read. It's short, so I read it in three short sittings. Jacques Bonnet talks about a life of collecting books in his private library. Of course he hasn't read them all, but by filing them in their respective shelves and keeping track of where to look for what, he has effectively read them. A wit coupled with an engaging philosophy towards reading; I thoroughly enjoyed these 120 pages. Couple with Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris.

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“The important thing is not so much to read fast, as to read each book at the speed it deserves. It is as regrettable to spend too much time on some books as it is to read others too quickly. There are books you know well, just from flicking through them, others you only grasp at second or third reading, and others again which will last you a lifetime.” — 11 likes

“Every time you open a book for the first time, there is something akin to safe-breaking about it. Yes, that's exactly it: the frantic reader is like a burglar who has spent hours digging a tunnel to enter the strongroom of a bank. He emerges face to face with hundreds of strongboxes, all identical, and opens them one by one. And each time a box is opened, it loses its anonymity and becomes unique: one is filled with paintings, another with a bundle of banknotes, a third with jewels or letters tied in ribbon, engravings, objects of no value at all, silverware, photos, gold sovereigns, dried flowers, files of paper, crystal glasses, or children’s toys--and so on. There is something intoxicating about opening a new one, finding its contents and feeling overjoyed that in a trice one is no longer in front of a set of boxes, but in the presence of the riches and wretched banalities that make up human existence.” — 6 likes

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