Book Patrol’s Top Books about Books for 2009

Welcome to Book Patrol’s inaugural list of our favorite books about books of the year. The list is in no particular order; for all of them are worth a read, and as you will see, in the year the e-book took off, books about books were very much alive.

The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control

This is a book for both the student of deep book history and for the casual book culture enthusiast. Striphas shows us how despite the enormous pressures currently facing the book it continues to play a vital role in our culture. The book is packed with tidbits of biblio history; who knew that the bookshop and it’s shelving habits were the precursor to supermarket design, and also offers much on the long relationship between books and technology, from barcodes to Oprah (it is after all a television show), to online bookselling and now the rush of e-books. The cover illustration is the icing on the cake.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett. Riverhead Books

As Ken Sanders, the ‘detective’ and self professed ‘biblodick’ of the book more aptly calls it ‘The Man Who Loved “To Steal” Books Too Much’. It provides a good account of the potential dark side of biblomania for the thief, John Gilkey, is as sick and delusional as they come.

Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuster

Noted author and Academy Award winner Larry McMurtry is also a bookseller. For as long as he has been writing he has been buying and selling books. In Books: A Memoir McMurtry shares his life in and around books. The book is packed with great insights into the book trade. McMurtry claims to have handled over a million books in his bookselling life which can only lead to some great stories. “One reason I’ve hung on to book selling is that it’s progressive-the opposite of writing, pretty much” says McMurtry. The learning curve is always vertical.

Howard’s End on the Landing by Susan Hill. Profile Books

Noted author Susan Hill went looking for a book in her library. While searching she came across numerous others that sparked memories of having read them or a desire to read them. The experience was intense enough for Hill to swear off buying and books for a year to spend time with the books that surrounded her. “A book which is left on a shelf for a decade is a dead thing, but it is also a chrysalis, packed with the potential to to burst into new life.”

Shotgun on My Chest: Memoirs of a Lewis & Clark Book Collector
by Roger Wendlick. 12-Gauge Press

This book is an inside look at blue-collar bibliomania at its best. Wendlick, a construction worker in Portland, OR, amassed one of, if not the best, collection of Lewis & Clark material ever assembled. Shotgun on My Chest documents this journey and gives you a front row seat to Wendlick’s epic quest.

The Case for Books : Past, Present, and Future by Robert Darnton. PublicAffairs

Here in one place reside the greatest hits from one of the world’s leading book minds. Darton, who is currently the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the Harvard University Library, has been at the forefront of ‘the history of the book’ movement since its inception. It includes many of his essays that have appeared in the New York Review of Books over the years. The man loves books and understands technology.

Read Me: A Century of Classic American Book Advertisements
by Dwight Garner. HarperCollins

A look at the last 100 years of book advertising in print. Interesting to see how many of the century’s best books were framed and presented. A timely book in the sense that print advertising as a marketing tool for a book is become more and more endangered as newspaper and magazines continue to disappear at a record clip. In another 100 years one might not ever remember that there once existed print advertisements for books.