In Praise of Good Bookstores - Jeff Deutsch

 The author is the manager of the Seminary Co-Op, a bookstore started in 1961in the basement of  the Chicago Theological Seminary and moved in 2012 to a building in Hyde Park, Illinois. In 2014 the author succeeded the long time manager Jack Celia.

The book is a loving tribute to bookstores and booksellers.  Many independent bookstores are referenced throughout.  Deutsch liberally peppers the book with literary references, giving one the feeling of a deep conversation with a knowledgeable caretaker of all things books. 

He describes the deliberate environment created by booksellers and the different personalities that wander their bookstores and lauds the value of browsing a bookstore as its greatest contribution to society.

This was a quirky, high brow read.

Quotes:

p 25 - "...browsing is a form of rumination.  Books, like the leaves and shrubs known as the browsage, provide ruminant-readers with their nutrients."

p 50 - "In 1931, the mathematician S.R. Ranganathan...coined the term 'library science' and proposed the ..Five Laws of Library Science.  1.  Books are for use. 2. Every reader his or her book.  3. Every book its reader. 4. Save the time of the reader. 5. The library is a growing organism."

p. 64 - [Jorge Luis] Borges, was appointed director of the National Library of Argentina in 1955 almost simultaneously with his immersion into' the dark world and wide', the blindness passed down to him from his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, all of whom died blind."

p. 100 - "The most important things in the world seem impossible to measure.  We have as yet, a Carlyle said, no scale to measure admiration by.  And we have as yet no scale for measuring meaning, knowledge, hope, pleasure, reverence, curiosity, beauty, kindness, awe, justice, wisdom, and love."

p. 118 - "We readers have felt the companionship of books, and many of us have found ourselves at a loss to explain to the underliterate among us the power and nourishment we receive from our books."

Published: 2022  Read: July 2022 Genre: History