Nonsuch Book

book lust: other people's books

Readers tend to judge others by the books on their shelves. And this is a socially acceptable practice. Don't go through their drawers or their medicine cabinet or their mail, but an even more pronounced form of voyeurism, mentally inventorying every last title in their homes or offices, is just fine. And don't tell me you don't make judgements based upon what you see. That you haven't identified a potential friend or lover by seeing what they read.

A email from the Strand bookstore arrived in my inbox this week, offering a link to an author's bookshelf. Karen Russell. I greatly enjoy her quirkiness and wanted to see what she reads. So I clicked through immediately and found many books I already own and enjoyed plus a few new things to lust after.

 And clicked away from the page feeling more excitement about reading her newest book over my upcoming break. Because I have seen her shelves. 

and i might read...

The lists. Books coming out in 2013. Everywhere. And we all jump on them like the Sears holiday catalogs of old where one might pick out every toy that strikes one's imagination as a prerequisite to happiness. And then play with those received for 5 days before casting them on to the parental pile of frustrated dismay. So I look through all the lists to see what I might read this year, the new and novel that for a few moments (if I do not read attached commentary), I may project every need I may have from a particular book. Until I read that description, those advance reviews, that attraction is perfect, that book lust ideal. The perfect happiness of the uninformed moment.

The book you see above is the perfect example of this. I have no idea whatsoever what this book is about. Coatzee's prose pleases me, the cover art is outstanding, and my Catholic school girl self may take that title and run with any juvenile flights of fancy I might have had (as a nun screamed at me) that Jesus was just as mischievous as a child as me, a thought that evolved with age into "of course Jesus slept with Mary Magdalene." So The Childhood of Jesus goes on the wish list of possibilities.

 Then there is the lure of reading a favorite author in a different genre or format. The upcoming release of Bolano's collected poetry. Or a series of lectures that Borges gave in 1966 at the University of Buenos Aires that span from the Vikings to Oscar Wilde. And the additional appeal of having two go-to books this year that don't consume my attention all at once but provide important dip-ins of intense focus.

 

And whimsy will be required. Really enjoyed Swamplandia! but appreciate Karen Russell's short stories even more. Vampires in the Lemon Grove will be needed.

Favorite authors. I read whatever Gaiman publishes, and just love the title of this one. So The Ocean at the End of the Lane makes the wish list even though I know nothing about it. And The Infatuations because I am completely infatuated with Marias, and am busting out of my skin trying to imagine how his writing from a woman's point of view will play out. His observations of women are so idiosyncratic and so distant that I wonder how he will close that divide to inhabit a woman's thoughts and voice.

 

And finally, there are the books that remind you that you never got around to reading those other new release books years ago that you coveted so much at the time. I was so excited about Exodus when I read, “The final volume in Iyer’s gloomily brilliant trilogy about a toxic friendship between unfortunate philosophy dons, boozing and bitching in the great tradition of Beckett’s double acts.” (The Guardian), but then remembered that I had neglected to read both Spurious and Dogma that I was equally excited about when they were published. So I add three books to the list instead of just the one. And then the new Anne Carson you see above would be so much more meaningful if I read my long-neglected copy of The Autobiography of Red first. Add two more.

What 2013 new releases have you the most (perhaps unrealistically) excited about reading?

the untidy gnome eluded me

I was very good this year. So I decided to test just how good and ask Santa for a 1935 edition of The Untidy Gnome by Stella Gibbons, illustrated by William Townsend. The description from rare book firm Peter Harrington read:

First edition, first impression of a rare children's book by the author of Cold Comfort Farm. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "Stella Gibbons, Nov. 18 1936". We know of no other copy in private hands, and OCLC locates only 11 in institutions. A lovely copy in the dust jacket.

Apparently Santa took the approximate $1,600 price point to be a gross inflation of my virtue. And the fat man was right of course, but I hope he appreciated my cheek in trying.

Now what I was able to manage this holiday season were copies of all the Vintage Gibbons editions I had been coveting for some time. Four of the titles are pictured above. Even better than just acquiring more books was the time to read The Matchmaker and Westwood during my holiday break. Nightingale Wood left me happy earlier in the year, Cold Comfort Farm is one of my favorite books, and I knew like you know about some authors that I would not be satisfied until I had had them all.

Why? Gibbons voice as a journalist, as a fine and wickedly funny observer of human nature, is never reduced to the sentimental as one might assume from these lovely covers. She survived two world wars, and she writes with and instills in many of her heroines a steely sense of purpose. But she also revels in revealing how inaccurately we can all perceive ourselves and those around us, how we are all works in progress. Things are just as they are - we can trust too much in the regard of others, we can long for hedonistic indulgence in times of want and beyond, and the most worthy and intelligent women around us can be physically unattractive. 

I am not one to make resolutions in the traditional sense on this first day of the year, but I will read as many of the works of Stella Gibbons as I can lay my hands on this year. Because she makes me laugh. Because she is often a needed slap in the face, a reminder to get over one's self. And so smart. Smart like Muriel Spark where keen observation stops the writing from veering off on to the wrong side of bitter.

book lust: the penguin drop cap series

Near the holidays, when people close to me begin to ask what I might like in the way of gifts, and all but a few put on their most resolute and stubborn faces and say to me, looking me directly in the eyes, "anything but books," I begin to craft lists of all the books I want, books for which I have no need. This eye-catching Drop Cap series from Penguin designed by Jessica Hische and Paul Buckley is the perfect example of this sort of object of my book lust. The first six titles will be available on November 27. I have read each of these books. Multiple times. I own multiple copies of each of the six titles. I want all of them for Christmas.

Compulsive, I know, but a lot of the appeal of this series is about book as design object again, the focus on typography and the info from the press release that I read at Imprint that stated that each book will have “a foil-stamped paper-over-board case and a decorative color stain on all three edges.” You feel warm all over when you read that, don't you?

More examples of Hische's lovely work may be found at her blog, Daily Drop Cap.

book lust: horseshoe crabs and velvet worms by richard fortey

When this popped up in the book section of the NYT this week, it was instant love for me. The cover design is elegant, successfully combining scientific image with softer script and flourish. I also have an odd fascination with horseshoe crabs having spent much time in close examination of them growing up when they washed up on the beaches near my childhood home. A scientific consideration of them made me both nostalgic and curious. But then this from the review left me with little choice but to seek this one out: 

"The good news about “Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms” is that Mr. Fortey is as vivid and charming about live things as he’s long been about dead ones, perhaps even more so. Reading this book is like stepping into the field with a man who’s equal parts naturalist and poet, let’s say equal parts E. O. Wilson and Paul Muldoon. The Wilson in him wields the notebook; the Muldoon flutters. It’s a bewitching combination."

Flutters. Bewitching. Soon to be mine.

book lust: in one person by john irving

The upcoming John Irving novel, In One Person, has been my primary object of book lust since I first heard about it. And then this week, I actually found myself with a galley, and I cannot tell you what a freaking distraction it has been. I plan to finish this weekend. And then re-read right before publication in May. If you are an Irving fan like me who has loved all of his books even the lesser (you know the ones - I bet we would all pick the same three), but have a special love for Garp, this one is for you. Thought that before I saw this from Irving's Facebook page:

Here’s an early look at the cover of my new novel, In One Person, to be published May 8, 2012. My thirteenth novel, In One Person is about sexual identity. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character, tells the story of his life as a “sexual suspect”—from his adolescence in the fifties, through the AIDS epidemic, into the present.

I first used the phrase “sexual suspect” in 1978, in my novel of “terminal cases,” The World According to Garp. I return to that theme in this novel; as a bisexual man, Billy is a “sexual suspect” in the eyes of both straight and gay people.

In One Person is my most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, but it’s also a tribute to Billy’s friends and lovers. Not least, In One Person is a portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself “worthwhile.”

Has made my week.

book lust: one on one by craig brown

Via Caustic Cover Critic this week. 101 true stories of unlikely meetings each told in 1,001 words may seem a tad gimmicky, but I can't shake off my desire to read this one. And the cover design, once again, is what drew me in. The random associations from one improbable encounter to another visually represented on the cover design serves as a blurb all on it's own. Click on the image to take a closer look. 

book lust: oliver sacks designed by cardon webb

Isn't this striking as one image? Love the use of color on the clinical black and white image. And reminds me that I have been tempted to pick up a book by Oliver Sacks from time to time. (via The Accidental Optimist)

book lust: the cry of the owl by patricia highsmith

Picked up news here of a Patricia Highsmith novel I have not read yet. Recently reissued. One that promises to be "one of her most unsettling. Which is saying plenty."  A novel that begins "Night was falling quickly, with visible speed like a black sea creeping over the earth." About a man driving through the woods who catches a glimpse of a woman through a window with whom he becomes instantly obsessed even without being able to see her clearly or know her name or hear her voice. There is the promise of this stalker/prey relationship being turned on its head, and delivering an ending in a familiarly shocking Highsmith tradition. I really want to read this. So I went to order it. Being of little bookish impulse control. And to my great disappointment, the cover is awful. But I am reading it anyway. I will just have to give it away afterwards and search for a more appealing vintage cover if the book turns out to be a favorite.

Look at this. It is like the promise of new clothes as a child only to have them pulled from the bag to reveal a Garanimals horror.

book lust: penguin threads deluxe classics

In October, Penguin will release three volumes in the new Penguin Threads Deluxe Classics line. And I hope there will be more. Not because we necessarily need yet another edition of these three classics or others that might present themselves to the line, but because they are beautiful. Click on any of the images for a closer look.

Designer Jillian Tamaki's work process is fascinating to me, and can be seen on her blog here. For anyone interested in the needle arts (as I am), this project is an inspiring marriage of the craft and the imagination. Don't forget to click over to her Monster Quilt first embroidery effort. It might give you ideas of your own. Sewing the book.