The Book Lover's Anthology: A Compendium of Writing about Books, Readers & Libraries

By Kate Phillips 

          My book recommendation this week is The Book Lover’s Anthology: A Compendium of Writing about Books, Readers & Libraries published by Bodleian Library. It’s not a book you read straight through, but one you pick up when you only have a few minutes to read or just feel like browsing.

There are inspiring quotes, passages, and poems about: The Friendship of Books; Old and New Books; Good Books and Bad; The Joys of Reading; A Sentimental Education; Bibliophilia; Literary Worlds; and The Library.

          Among my favorite passages are:

           Rich Fare

…There are other evils, great and small, in this world…Of these, Providence has allotted me a full share; but still, paradoxical as it may sound, my burden has been greatly lightened by a load of books.

Thomas Hood, letter to the Manchester Athenaeum (page 29)

          Books are men of higher stature,

          And the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.

                   Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lady Geraldine’s Courtship

                  (page 35)

                  

Love and the Library

          I do not know that I am happiest when alone; but this I am

          sure of, that I am never long even in the society of her I love

          without a yearning for the company of my lamp and my

          utterly confused and tumbled-over  library.      

                    George Gordon, Lord Byron (page 182)

          I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books

          than a king who did not love reading.

                   Thomas Macaulay (page 210)

          Enjoy discovering your favorite passages!