Book Rituals & Rites
February 1, 2009

On Thursday of last week I stopped in at the post office after work to find three boxes of books waiting for me. Two were considerable in girth and one of those was of backbreaking weight. Still, they were books so I wrestled all three boxes into the trunk of the car and drove home with a goofy grin on my face. It was Book Day!

Two of the parcels were from Edward R. Hamilton, my favorite remainder book dealer. The third parcel, a medium-sized box, weighty in its own right, was a gift from BiblioBuffet’s managing editor, Nicki Leone. She had been giving away books, and I took the opportunity to grab more than few.

So there I was, propped up against the sofa with a pillow, the box from Nicki in front of me, the others in a pile, and the cats sniffing around the boxes. Wielding the scissors with caution, I cut and pulled at the wraparound tape. The top finally loosened sufficiently to allow me to tug at the last few pieces. Then—it lay open. I pulled the packing material out and began excitedly to carefully lift out books of all sizes, shapes, colors and types.

Before books can be fully integrated into my library they need to go through a few rituals. And I am not alone. Bibliophiles often use formal procedures they have created to make a book “theirs.” Some I have read about, others I know from asking other people. For example, Nicki Leone of “A Reading Life” and owner of about ten thousand books,  some of them duplicates (and even triplicates) not only of single volumes but of sets, still enjoys her literary rituals:

First, I tear into any new package like a kid at Christmas. Even after twenty-five years of doing this, I still get ridiculously excited when I open a package of books. I just never seem to get jaded or blasé about it.

Then, depending on what’s in the box, a couple of things might happen. If the box has ARCs, I sort through them and determine which ones I might actually be interested in. Those go on one of two shelves designated for ARCs. (Not that this is a guarantee that I’ll get to them. There are some on those shelves that say “Release date May 2003!”). 

If I’m not interested, or if I already have the book, or if it is a finished copy of a book and I also have the ARC, then those—the duplicates, the review copies, the unfinished copies, the  uninteresting—go into a book bag that lives on a chair by the kitchen door. Laura takes the more appropriate ones (no sex, no swearing) to her after-school arts program for kids and hands them out to any child who seems interested. The ones that aren't appropriate we give away to friends who visit, or to friends we are visiting.

If I am interested then I sit down and enter it into my Book Collectorz database, and into several online libraries I keep: Library Thing, Goodreads.com, Social Reads, which is a Facebook application. I'm not as diligent about these except for Library Thing, which is probably nearly as complete as my own home database (and actually a little more fun to play with).

Once they are cataloged, books lead a sort of nomadic existence until I actually read them. They sit in piles around my library table, near my reading chair, at my bedside, and in my briefcase and traveling bag. I read one to three books a week, and have five to eight going at any given time. Which one I reach for first depends on mood, deadlines and whether I’m stubbornly ignoring those deadlines for other interests so I tend to carry them around with me from place to place.

When a book has finally been read, it gets shelved. Every room in the house has bookshelves, and it still isn’t quite enough. But I have general categories for fiction, biography, art, poetry, literary criticism,  history (American and European), religion, cooking, classical studies, natural history, travel writing. I also have a number of shelves or cases devoted to more eclectic things: mythology & folklore, Arabic literature, Shakespeariana, Sherlock Holmes, Audubon & ornithology, complexity, history of printing, typography. Lately I’ve been contemplating a shelf for eighteenth century stuff because I seem to have quite a lot of it.

So I guess the library is always shifting slightly, manifesting itself in new ways. I’m not sure if all this counts as “ritual" so much as the pattern I’ve fallen into as a professional book reviewer. Still, this is the usual fate of any book that comes through the door.

Rob Kaplan, in an essay titled “The Ritual” that he contributed to A Passion for Books, has a more formal procedure. “I’ve brought home,” he says, “on average, almost two books every week, year in and year out, for most of my life.” And his ritual has been one that has varied by little over those four plus decades. After describing his buying rituals—the list, the search, the reading of the flap copy, the half-title and title pages, the copyright page, the table of contents (if there is one) and the first and only the first paragraph, and the final inspection of the book to ensure it is a flawless copy—he then goes on to describe the evening’s work which moves that book into its new home:

Having seated myself at my desk I gently remove my new books from the bag I’ve carried them home in—or from the package in which they’ve arrived from the catalog dealer—and bring up the acquisitions list on my computer. Each new title is assigned an acquisitions number . . . and the list includes, in addition to this number, the book’s author and title as well as the subject matter of the book. None of this, I’ve long since admitted, to myself, serves any truly useful purpose, other than the psychological one of making the book mine, of incorporating not only into my library but into my mind.

Then I bring up the database program . . . and it’s become an extremely important part of the ritual. These fields contain the kind of bibliographic information one would expect in such a record . . . however they include the subject matter, to three levels of specification such as History, American, 20th Century, as well as the book’s format (cloth, trade paperback, mass market paperback and so forth), the date on which I purchased the book, the acquisitions number, and other miscellaneous information about the book. Finally, there’s a field for the book’s “status,” which I record as “To Be Read,” “Reference,” or “Reserve,” the last of which is used for those books that I may read at some point in the future but are not on the primary list. . . .

I now open the book from the back and, in pencil, write the purchase date in the upper right had corner of the back cover. . . . Now, at last, I am ready to place my new book on my shelves. . . . My library is now divided according to subject area, the books in each area arranged alphabetically by author so there is a place for everything. And in the final step of my ritual, I find the appropriate section, make a space for the new book between whichever authors it belongs , and slowly slide it into place, making sure the spine is lined up with all the other books on the shelves, because anything less would offend my sense of order.

My own ritual isn’t long in itself but with three boxes full of books facing me it has become an exercise in patience. Rushing through or eliminating any steps wouldn’t feel right. And like Nicki, regardless of how many times books come to me I get as excited as the proverbial kid in the candy store.

It’s important that each book be acknowledged so I curb my urge to grab an armful and fling myself back on the sofa. Instead, I remove them one at a time,  run my fingers over each cover, then turn the book over to read the back cover. If it’s a hardcover with dust jacket or a trade paperback with flaps I read those as well. Then I open it to the first page, reading just that page, even if it ends in the middle of a sentence. Finally I sniff the gutter of the book. I have no idea why or exactly when this last became part of my ritual—I’ll admit that writing it in public for the first time makes me feel a little bent—but I enjoy doing it. I like the distinctive smell, especially of used ones.

In the past I used to enter them into a database, but no longer. I’ve yet to find an entirely satisfactory one, though I have used Excel (efficient, easy, but without any possibility of creating an attractive look or adding pictures), Book Collectorz (annoyingly rigid in spite of its numerous options), and LibraryThing (I’m uncomfortable with putting it online). Now, I simply write, in pencil, on the front flyleaf or the first blank page, where the book came from and the date it arrived in my home: “Chaucer’s Bookstore / January 15, 2009.”

Now I head right to my third and favorite step, which is to intermingle the newly arrived books with my current library. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough bookshelves to house them all, at least not in the way I would like to, which would be by subject for nonfiction, and by author for fiction. My bookshelves, custom made to minimize empty space, utilize a variety of depths and heights so that books of the same relative size go together. The result is that categorization by subject matter is necessarily secondary to book dimensions.

Each book has to go through each of these steps individually; it wouldn’t feel right to do otherwise. Like Nicki, Rob, and others I want to honor my individual books. Right now, I am about half-way through. And the formerly empty shelf that hugs the ceiling is now full. Life is good.

By the way, for those who wondered what happened when I lent my expensive and beloved book,  Croatia, to a police officer I had not known previously I am pleased to say he returned it with due haste and all respect. It looks as good now as it did before.

Book Festivals:
This month begins the season of U.S. book festivals, the approximately ten months of the year when they dot the literary landscape. Coming up next weekend are ones for California and Georgia. The following festivals run from Friday, February 6 through Sunday, February 8.

The Inland Empire area of southern California hosts the annual Riverside Dickens Festival in historic downtown Riverside. This year’s theme is “A Nickel’s Worth of Nickleby.” This looks to be one fantastic festival, and I cannot believe I have not known of it before.     

Special activities include Mr. Fezziwig’s Grand Ball (and Pre-Ball Tour), Mr. Pickwick’s Pub Night, Queen Victoria and her Royal Court, and a London Marketplace where vendors and craft demonstrators sell their wares and the many costumed characters promenade. But there is much more: street performers and dancers, food vendors, educational workshops, musical performances, exhibits, pageants, living history presentations, workshops, classroom study, book discussions, movies and video theatre, a mini-faire for children. Here is a brief listing of some of the more unusual ones:

• No Idle Hands Ladies Handiwork Group – Handiwork & gossip
• Royal Victorian Tea Room & Music Hall
• Oliver’s Alley Children’s Tea Party
• Mrs. Cratchit’s Kitchen
• Mr. Bumble speaks on Marriage
• Fagin speaks on Child Labor
• Nancy speaks on Economics
• Meet Mr Dickens
• Mr. Sowerberry speaks on Mortality
• Scrooge speaks on Thrift
• Marley speaks on Charity
• Mr. Crummle speaks on Acting

In Georgia, the Savannah Book Festival, for its second year, is offering a surprisingly wide variety of authors and events. They have seven venues in and around Telfair Square. Each venue will have six consecutive author presentations (with book signings afterwards) from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the following categories: Fiction, More Fiction, History & Biography, Contemporary Issues, Lifestyle, Poetry, and Family Activities. Special events include the Friday night Keynote Address by humorist and author Roy Blount, Jr.;  Sunday Brunch on the Square with Paula Deen, a fundraiser catered by her famous restaurant; and Saturday’s activities—family activities (musical and spoken word performances, art demonstrations, storytelling), food vendors from local restaurants, and exhibitors including a local authors’ marketplace. 

The Pub House:
Mage Publishers, founded in 1985, specializes in English-language editions of books on Persian literature and culture, books that bring “to readers outside Iran and around the globe the best of the Persian arts and history.” They issue from four to six books a year in areas that include “Persian food, Iranian music, poetry of Persia, gardens of Persia, a timeline of Persian history from the ancient Persian Empires to modern Iran, reprints of books about Iran in a series called Persia Observed.”

For history fans, one of their new releases, Letters from Tabriz, is a compilation of the letters received by Edward G. Browne from Iranian constitutionalist leaders describing in eyewitness accounts the experiences of the people of Tabriz during the Tsarist Russian occupation. Britain and Russia had made a secret agreement to divide the country into spheres of influence, and Russia, which controlled the northeastern city, took violent measures to suppress the constitutional movement then afoot. Travels Through Northern Persia is the first-time translation of the journals of German scientist and explorer Gottlieb Gemlin during his two voyages on behalf of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1770. In it, he records the customs, industry, politics, warfare, geography, flora and fauna, people, social customs, money, various courts, and more. One of their food-related books that is both a cookbook and a trip into the cuisine of the culture is New Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies, a dazzling compilation of 240 recipes and 120 color illustrations that set off the vivid descriptions of the ceremonies, poetry, folk tales, travelogue excerpts, and anecdotes of the culture behind the food from more than 4,000 years ago to today.

Of Interest:
If you are old enough to remember Life magazine you’ll love the Life Photo Archive. But you don’t need to remember the original magazine to appreciate the millions of photos stocked on this site that range from the 1750s through today. You can do a search or simply browse one of their main categories—people, places, events, sports, culture. Because the archive is hosted by Google, your results will come from Google Images, but the results are limited to the Life archives.

I did two searches using, first, the word “cat” and second, “Eleanor Roosevelt.” The latter brought up 119 images, the former 200 results. The images are noted as being “for personal, non-commercial use only,” and they can be enlarged to considerable size. For those who miss the world of images as presented by Life when it ruled the magazine world this is an essential site to bookmark. For anyone who just loves photography, history, and culture the Life Photo Archive is a rich resource.

This Week . . .
Book blogs abound. Worthwhile book blogs aren’t quite so abundant, but neither are they rare. One of the good ones is hosted by the Los Angeles Times, the once-proud, now-battered and suffering newspaper that nevertheless still strives, despite its limited resources, to bring quality writing to its readers. This blog, Jacket Copy, is one of its best features with smart, thoughtful posts on anything to do with books and reading. The variety of contributors assures that the topics are not only lively but varied (no one gets burned out). One personal criticism: because the Times has always had a television/movie obsession, not surprising given that it occupies the same physical territory, there seem quite a few posts on books, publishing events and people related to those two industries.

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren