In this slim but charming volume, with an introduction by novelist James Salter, French art historian, editor, and novelist Bonnet describes his obsession with books, which has yielded a library of more than 40,000 volumes. In chapters such as “Organizing the Bookshelves” and “Where do they all come from?” Bonnet ponders the pitfalls of various organizational systems, the practice and art of reading, the intricacies of bookstores, buying new versus used books, and the effects of the Internet and electronic books on a physical library. Identity and books are closely intertwined. As Bonnet writes: “The fundamental character of the librarian will emerge as one’s eye travels along the bookshelves.” While ostensibly about Bonnet’s library, the volume also illustrates the intensely symbiotic relationship between reader and writer, a book and its recipients. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. (July)
"Part cataloging manual, part homage to books, adventure story and autobiography, this Borgesian account is a promise of happiness."
"This is a charming book full of erudition and wit, and is very nicely translated."
"This is a charming book full of erudition and wit, and is very nicely translated." — John Sutherland, Literary Review
"Part cataloging manual, part homage to books, adventure story and autobiography, this Borgesian account is a promise of happiness." — Jerome Garcin, Nouvel Observateur
"This charming volume illustrates the intensely symbiotic relationship between reader and writer, a book and its recipients." — Publishers Weekly
"The book's ideal readers will be those who share Bonnet's love of being surrounded by the evidence of their minds' journeys, insatiable readers who love to linger over large and quirky accumulations of the printed word. For those readers, highly recommended." — Library Journal
"In Phantoms on the Bookshelves, Jacques Bonnet has once again invested the humble reading copy, the mode through which we first read, experienced, and encountered our favorite books and writers, with the old affection, respect and awe we had for it." — The Hindu
"In Phantoms on the Bookshelves, Jacques Bonnet has once again invested the humble reading copy, the mode through which we first read, experienced, and encountered our favorite books and writers, with the old affection, respect and awe we had for it."
French art critic and novelist Bonnet (Un jeune homme rebelle) published these ruminations, inspired by his book-gathering habits, in France in 2008. They are now translated by Reynolds (Marriage and Revolution: Monsieur and Madame Roland) and introduced by novelist James Salter (A Sport and a Pastime). In nine pieces plus a preface, Bonnet recalls particular biblio-moments in his life, or glances at a book on his shelves (he believes he now possesses about 40,000 volumes), then takes readers with him as he connects anecdote to anecdote, book to book, insight to insight. He is not a collector in the recent fashion of buying, say, a mint-condition Pynchon and not reading it for fear of lowering its value. He buys to support his interests and to read. He is compelled by the varied human bonds with books, the quandaries that the urge to buy them brings, the ways books can connect us, the criteria (or lack thereof) by which we arrange them on our shelves, and the range of libraries he has encountered, both fictional and real, extant and departed. VERDICT The book's ideal readers will be those who share Bonnet's love of being surrounded by the evidence of their minds' journeys, insatiable readers who love to linger over large and quirky accumulations of the printed word. For those readers, highly recommended.—Margaret Heilbrun, Library Journal