Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books

Endlessly fascinating photos of several novelists' bookshelves, with brief interviews on the subject of the physical book, shelving practices, reading habits, etc. I love books about books, and this one is a treat. Even though I'm only marginally familiar with most of the authors featured here, it's still a rush to peer at their bookshelves (which range from the raw pine creatively messy conglomeration of Junot Diaz's collection to the sterile white uniformity of Rebecca Goldstein & Steven Pinker's cubic system) and find that I share titles with these successful writers and thinkers. I was surprised at the number of them who profess to have no attachment to their books as objects or repositories of memory ("I read that one at Aunt show more Clare's the summer my mother had her surgery" "That's the copy of Ulysses that the puppy chewed the back cover off" "This was Dad's favorite western novel; he read this copy as a teen-ager.") In addition to scoping out particular titles on the shelves, it was fun to be invited into the living rooms of strangers just to look around. Why, in Claire Messud's lovely, tasteful library/music room, is there what appears to be an Oriental rug rolled up and stashed behind a chair? What's the story behind the antique pitchfork in Lev Grossman's study? Philip Pullman, do you really always have those enormous stacks of books on the floor in front of your otherwise orderly bookshelves? (If so, I LOVE you, man!) A great number of the books on Edmund White's shelves seem to be unread copies of books by ----Edmund White. Each of the authors featured here was asked to share a "Top Ten" list. Comparing those was fun--Chekov, Tolstoy and Nabokov made multiple appearances; so did Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bishop and George Eliot. I was excited to see Barbara Pym and Alice Munro given mention. If you're a library voyeur, you can spend a lot more time with this book than it takes just to read the text.
Read and reviewed in 2011 show less

This was exciting to read for the fact that I felt some great commiseration with some of the authors on certain statements and answers. I really enjoyed that everyone involved shared their top ten books, and that I drew a few more recs off of their shared bookshelves.

The opportunity to read about the reading and collecting habits of other people--especially this variety of people--is both interesting and helpful as I spend too much time in my own head trying to figure out my own thoughts on the reading, keeping and sharing of books.

Such different personalities and sentiments are shared here, that despite the interviewer posing the same questions to each author (which, admittedly, makes perfect sense) over and over, I couldn't help but show more love it. show less

Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books (Yale University Press, 2011) is the second (architects came first) in Yale's series of small coffee-table books featuring short interviews with well-known people about their libraries alongside images of the writers' libraries.

Leah Price provides a short introduction and conducted the interviews, with writers Alison Bechdel, Stephen Carter, Junot Diaz, Rebecca Goldstein & Stephen Pinker, Lev Grossman & Sophie Gee, Jonathan Lethem, Claire Messud & James Wood, Philip Pullman, Gary Shteyngart, and Edmund White. Most of the writers were asked the same series of questions, with slight variants depending on the person: which books weren't on the public shelves, whether they listen to audiobooks show more or read ebooks, how the books are organized, whether they've gotten rid of books as they've moved, &c.

While it's interesting to see different writers respond to the same questions, some additional variation might have made the interviews just a bit more lively. And of course, some of the responses are better than others, as you'd expect (not surprisingly, I liked Philip Pullman's better than Edmund White's, particularly this line of Pullman's, which rang very true: "Every time I go into town I accidentally buy two or three books").

Overall, certainly an enjoyable book to leaf through (and shelf-browse), and Price's introductory essay is nicely done.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2012/02/book-review-unpacking-my-library.html show less

A great concept. As other reviewers have remarked, the repetition of the stock questions is distracting (only one contributor used the questions to write a single essay). This format -- it appears that the questions must have been submitted by email, and then the authors wrote their responses -- prevents any follow up questions based on the comments provided. The end result, therefore, is a bit flatter than it could have been. The effort is saved by the thoughtful answers provided by the selected writers.

Leah Price interviewed thirteen writers about their personal libraries, and the interviews appear with photographs of those libraries. A fascinating glimpse into the personal reading and shelving habits of a few persons of letters. I have always been irrevocably drawn to other people's bookshelves whenever I find myself in their company, and this book delightfully feeds that irresistible desire to snoop out what's on the shelves and how they're organized. The interviews are also a nice testament to the myriad right ways there are to house our beloved dead trees. Recommended to anyone who is bookishly inclined.

This is an interesting little book. My only real issue is the writers they chose to interview. Other than Alison Bechdel, the others were mostly literary fiction or critics of the stuffy variety. As more of a genre reader as I am, I found it difficult to care for what they offered. Having said though, the book is an easy read. You get a look into the books, their shelves, and the ways these folks think about books, how they relate to books. That part I did find interesting. The photography is very good by the way, which is another reason I liked the book. If you like books about books and reading, this is a pretty good one to pick up.

Now, if it had been me, these are people whose shelves I would love to see and who I would have loved show more to hear about their books and their reading:

*Gabriel Garcia Marquez

*Mario Vargas Llosa

*Neil Gaiman

*John Scalzi (I like his blog, so I imagine he would have good insights given some of the things he has said already).

*Alan Moore

I think this might make a good exercise. If you were to do a book like this one, which authors would you want to include. These are just five of my favorites, but there could be a few more I would not mind including. Anyhow, food for thought. show less

Can't resist scouring bookshelves. This was mostly visual - photographs of writers' bookshelves, with short commentaries - a little delight. However, two stars only because it was a very simple idea, which entailed not a lot of work.