I was hit by a fit of book lust this afternoon. Do you ever get those? You’re going along and all unexpected you come across a (new) book that you think OMG I absolutely HAVE TO READ it? There may not even be anything particularly special about the book but for some reason it catches your fancy.
That happened to me today. I was looking to see what new articles Arts and Letters Daily had up since I last checked in a few days ago and there was a link to an SF Gate book review article on a new book called The Use and Abuse of Literature by Marjorie Garber. The review describes the book as “an immensely readable yet vastly erudite reflection on the history of literary writing, literary criticism and the social value of both.” To say that I was sucked in would be putting it mildly. I had to find more information on this book. And I did.
NPR has a write up about it and an excerpt. And the Atlantic has an interview with the author.
We wantsss it, preciousss. I’m certain, however, that should I go out to the bookstore and get a copy of it this very evening, it will sit on my desk for at minimum two or three months and likely even longer than that. But I still want it. Bad.
Another book I am lusting after, but not as badly as the Garber book, is Brian Greene’s latest, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. I really liked his book Fabric of the Cosmos. His new book, about the theoretical possibility of parallel universes and more dimensions than you can shake a stick at speaks to my geek girl science fiction heart. In a parallel universe I think I have read this book already and in another I’m a physicist. Hey, it could happen.
Thanks for reminding me to check the Arts and Letters Daily site. I used to do that regularly but somehow have forgotten about it until your mentioning it. But yes, MG’s book sounds really interesting. I totally know what you mean by book lusting.
The Garber book has been added to my list! It sounds really great, and I kind of want it … right now!
I just received a review copy of the Garber book. I’ve only skimmed it but I wasn’t really grabbed by the opening section. Maybe the good stuff comes later…I’ll settle in and read it carefully in a bit.
This will not alleviate your book lust, but I LOOOOOVE Marjorie Garber! I’ve read books by her on bisexuality and cross-dressing, and they were both excellent. Not that I agreed with her every point but she is consistently thought-provoking and a very engaging writer. At some point I really want to check out her book on the practice of quoting (e.g., epigraphs, off-the-cuff literary references, etc.). Now this new one is added to my list as well!
Oh yes, I know all about Book Lust and so does my bank manager. It’s one of the many things about which we disagree. Given that our financial year ends in a fortnight and I may need his sympathetic tolerance (if bank managers ever possess such a thing) I am going to steel myself not to follow the links to this – at least not until the week after next, anyway!
Or as my PhD student and I used to say, don’t lead me into temptation – I can get there all by myself….
Oh yes, book lust and I are great friends. Best just to give into it, because the alternative, for me at least, is to angst a lot over it and then give in. Might as well shorten the process! The Garber does sound most intriguing – I’ll be interested to hear what Rohan has to say about it, and you too if/when you succumb to it!
Stefanie: I felt exactly the same way about the Garber volume. I will get it today at Powell’s. Sadly I’m back in Portland. Richard
Arti, I love A&L Daily. Did you know they are on Twitter?
Dorothy, LOL, glad I’m not the only one with sudden lust for this book
Rohan, call me jealous! I will be on the lookout for what you think of the book.
Emily, you just did me in. The articles say she writes about Shakespeare and so I didn’t go and look up her books, but now you made me go look and and does she ever have some interesting stuff! I just requested a pamphlet she published in 2003 called A Manifesto for Literary Studies to whet my appetite
Annie, LOL, those bank managers and financial people just don’t get it, do they?
Litlove, oh yes, I am very good at getting to temptation all by myself but it is so much more fun when I have company
Since I have your permission to give in, I might just have to find myself at a bookstore this weekend.
Richard, sorry you are back in Portland, but at least you have the benefit of being able to pop in to Powell’s
Brian Greene’s is one that I lusted after…and still haven’t gotten around to reading! Had to have it immediately and added it to the Kindle where it still sits.
Now I’m lusting for Garber’s, but I have so many in the stacks. The pressure begins to mount when there are too many books in the stacks and you want to read them all!
I have a very long Amazon wish list that I direct all friends and family to when it comes to be gift-giving times. Sometimes, I’m not that patient and I bite the bullet and get it for myself. I rationalize it by saying that some people go crazy over shoes, I go crazy over books. Same difference right?
Oh, that looks like fun. I get booklust, but usually for beautiful editions of a book I already know I love, or for funky old cookbooks, things like that. I have successfully curbed my appetite for what I call one-off reads (books you read just once and then are done with). That’s what the library is for! It also helps with my tendency to fill up shelves (and floors) with stacks of “someday” books. If I only have 3-4 weeks to read a book, it gets looked at a lot earlier. (that said, if I had a room with tons of shelving, that habit could creep back in fairly easily…)
Pingback: Kakfaesque | So Many Books
Jenclair, isn’t it so hard when there are so many books you want to read right now? So frustrating that because of time and only having one pair of eyes we can’t somehow read multiple books at the same time.
Hungry bookworm, LOL, I hate shoes, I much prefer to direct my obsession to boks as well!
Daphne, oh you are so good about using the library like you do. I tell myself that if I buy the book I won’t have to wait in a long line of hold, that I can read it right now. But of course, most of the time it doesn’t get read right now and by the time I do read it there are no more library holds for it.
Yep, I know all about that sort of booklust … the evidence surrounds me in my bedroom, my family room, and my rumpus room. It’s just not fair … why can’t I have two days for every one – my reading day and my other day running in parallel?
Book Lust? Me? Oh heavens no. Never, ever, at all. Okay. Maybe just occasionally. I have the Garber book on my wishlist. Not that I am lusting after it or anything.
Sometimes, it’s really late on a Friday night, and you really ought to be in bed, but you decide to go visit a friend and discover that you are madly lusting after the object of her desire. Should you wait till she’s had her fill, hear what she has to say, before acting on your desire? Or should you seek out her object of desire and see if it’s all it promises to be? Decisions, decisions…
Pingback: Sunday Caught My Interest « Reflections from the Hinterland
whisperinggums, it is hard to deny the evidence
If you figure out how to have two days for every one, you must let me in on the secret!
Danielle, I know I have only rarely seen evidence of book lust on your part. You rescue books and that is quite different as you are performing a public service
Emily, don’t think about it, just do it, follow your bookish desire and then worry about the consequences later
Pingback: Wednesday, the New Monday | So Many Books
I am more than half way through the Garber book and I say: Buy something else! It’s really disappointing, so much that I think I may not even review it, because it’s not even disappointing in an interesting way. Of course, as always, YMMV.
Rohan, really? How sad that makes me. I suppose I will wait for it from the library then and turn my book lusting elsewhere.