On Books, Bookshops and Libraries

One of my great pleasures of traveling is visiting one of two places: a library or a bookstore, preferably used. I recently read two pieces that helped give form to some of my thoughts on why I find libraries and bookstores so valuable and why I seek them out while travelling.

Nick Bilton’s piece chronicles the love he shared with his mother for books and reading. Their shared fondness was interrupted by an argument over the utility of e-books. It seriously damaged his relationship with his mother and led to deep reflection about the importance of books. Like him, I occasionally use an e-reader while traveling. Yet most of the time, I prefer the tactile pleasure of a physical book. I am a person who needs physical reading materials when I need to concentrate. The temptation to become distracted while on a computer or e-reader is just too great.

Bilton’s disagreement with his mother is further complicated after he moves to the United States and it becomes apparent that his mother’s cancer is terminal. After her death, his sister who is sorting through their mother’s belongings, sends him a text message asking if he wants her iPad. It is a devastating question. He does not want it; he wants her library – the books she held, felt, wrote in, spilled things on. The iPad is a piece of electronic gadgetry that will someday become obsolete and ceased to work. The beauty of the book is that it is a technology that can always be used and does not require a “reader,” other than the person holding it.

Treasures from used books: A "Hullabaloo" 

For me, part of the thrill of finding books is to see the name, date or inscription written inside. It is a great treasure to find a little note or newspaper clipping left between the pages of a book. While in Edinburgh I shopped a charity used book sale at a church and purchased a copy of Historical Streets of London, written in 1923. It has an inscription that reads, “To John and Nancy for friendship + hospitality, March 1979.”  Used books connect us with other people, from around the world, sometimes who died before we were born. As with Bilton and the messages to and from his mother, the personal notes left for others are a gift. The gift of a book is not simply a gift of hours of pleasures, but a lasting epigram of messages and meaning. Perhaps the messages left for me are less literary, but they are every bit as meaningful.  Even without an inscription, the gift a book carries meaning. Books are collections of stories or ideas that the owner thinks is sufficiently important that he/she is willing to keep it among their personal possessions. Giving a book as a gift is sharing these ideas and messages. It is a reminder to ourselves (and others) of who we are and what we think is important. In the corner of a messy closet I have a small collection of my father’s books. There are no great editions, nothing of substantive value – just his books. The move to digital media makes me wonder what will become of my own library when I am gone.

Forsythe’s essay is more upbeat and amusing; however, the message is still serious. His central thesis is that bookshops are essential for an educated life. The problem with knowledge is that we don’t know what we don’t know. Hence, the joy of book shopping, especially in a physical bookstore, is that we browse, search and discover. It is a journey of the mind. The book can be held and taken for a test drive. We get a preview: Does it hold our attention? Do we like the way it looks?

I make the same claims about libraries. The library is a repository of knowledge and information that is limitless. Even the smallest library contains unknown useful and/or interesting information. A public library is a place where the citizen can education oneself. Yet, we overlook libraries and take them for granted. Often libraries suffer from neglect. People only pay attention when there is a controversy. Yet, the loss of a library is a serious blow to a society.

Many would argue that the internet make books, traditional libraries and bookshops obsolete. Yet, these kinds of arguments do not take into account the usefulness of adjacent information. In the book lover’s parlance, the law of the good neighbor suggests that often the information want is not in the book you are looking for, but in the book next to it on the shelf. The bigger the collection, the larger the size our fields of information becomes. At the end of the day, while books, bookstores and libraries might seemed to be institutions of the past, we live in a world where high-level knowledge still requires each.

Nick Bilton, “In a Mother’s Library, Bound in Spirit and in Print,” New York Times, 14 May 2015, page D2.

Mark Forsyth, The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the Delights of Not Getting What You Wanted (Icon Books, 2014).