THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 31, 1996 TAG: 9603280571
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book review
SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
Books smell.
They do. I have been aware of their intoxicating aroma since childhood, when, while visiting my grandparents' place in Canada, I descended dark steps to the basement. There were boxes of paperbacks and pulp magazines down there.
Magnificent must!
A neon riot of color exploded from the covers that reflected Grandpa's taste for sensational adventure. Wild titles - Thrilling Western Stories, The Mad Hatter Mystery, The Case of the Howling Dog. I still recall one particularly emphatic publication that featured an enraged cowpoke behind a blazing six-gun under the inscription: Die, Damn You!
So I experience recognition reading George Gissing's 1903 observation that ``I know every book of mine by its scent, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things.''
It's an insight typical of the acute bibliosensitivity represented by The Romance of the Book, edited by Marshall Brooks (Birch Brook Press, 192 pp., $18).
Writes Brooks, ``The present collection seeks to, in a modest way, suggest what it is about books that makes them such special things, and in just what ways people live with them; why it is their readers and owners (the two are not always the same) can become so utterly fascinated with them.''
Brooks should know. The 43-year-old small press publisher from Newton, Mass., has been contributing to and providing books for more than a quarter of a century. Among the titles in his personal collection is Dorothy Galton's Survey of a Thousand Years of Beekeeping in Russia. Well, it was, after all, a preoccupation of sufficient merit for Sherlock Holmes to retire on.
Brooks possesses 10 library cards. He also has a wife, two sons and a literary arts press, Arts End Books of Spencer, Mass. Stephanie, Isaac and Graham do not regard their husband and father as deranged.
Most of the time.
``My major qualification for editing this collection about books,'' Brooks says, ``is that I have been reading books randomly without any particular plan (one book always leads to another) every day for probably the last 30 years.''
He knows the word ``book'' comes from ``boc,'' the Old English for ``beech,'' a preferred wooden inscribing surface for Germanic rune cutters.
He further knows and preserves what bibliophiles from Ben Franklin to Faith Baldwin have had to say about their passions.
Baldwin said, ``Books are both reality and escape. They shock us, sometimes they stun us, they trouble us - but always they delight us. They sharpen our insight, set our imaginations free.''
Scratch and sniff!
Here's Stephanie Greene on why these things make perfect presents:
``When I give a gift, it is usually a book. They are a pleasure to wrap, won't leak in your suitcase and are difficult to break. . . . A book is also the most likely present to survive a children's birthday party undestroyed.''
Here's Jim McGinn on their proper pursuit:
``Books are not something I buy so much as hunt. Now, one may travel another path to acquire a book, as I have done myself on occasion by visiting a spotless, antiseptic looking bookstore. Yet I find it preferable to go the first route, which at times assumes the nature of an archaeological dig.
``The voyage by way of visiting those side-street shops, such as Marty's, is more cluttered and time-consuming, but it always holds out more promise of unearthing true treasure.''
Grandpa's basement!
And, even more to the point, here's Franz Kafka on their enduring appeal:
``Books are a narcotic.''
Those of a similar disposition - undoubtedly you who have read this far - will want to purchase this wonderful handset letterpress book about books. Send $18 plus $.81 Virginia sales tax and $2.25 for shipping to Birch Brook Press, P.O. Box 81, Delhi, NY 13753. Numbered hard-bound limited editions, signed by the editor, are $65. Bookfolk will regard this as a bargain.
You may also want to take a tip from Edmund Gosse's pal, Lady Dorothy Nevill, who preserved her personal library by pasting the following bookplate into each volume:
THIS BOOK HAS BEEN STOLEN FROM LADY DOROTHY NEVILL.- by CNB