So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in the Digital Age - Perfect for Book Lovers, Librarians & Digital Publishers

$10.26

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So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in the Digital Age - Perfect for Book Lovers, Librarians & Digital Publishers

$10.26

$13.68

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Description

"Gabriel Zaid's defense of books is genuinely exhilarating. It is not pious, it is wise; and its wisdom is delivered with extraordinary lucidity and charm. This is how Montaigne would have written about the dizzy and increasingly dolorous age of the Internet. May So Many Books fall into so many hands."Leon Wieseltier"Reading liberates the reader and transports him from his book to a reading of himself and all of life. It leads him to participate in conversations, and in some cases to arrange themIt could even be said that to publish a book is to insert it into the middle of a conversation."from So Many BooksJoin the conversation! In So Many Books, Gabriel Zaid offers his observations on the literary condition: a highly original analysis of the predicament that readers, authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians, and teachers find themselves in todaywhen there are simply more books than any of us can contemplate."With cascades of books pouring down on him from every direction, how can the twenty-first-century reader keep his head above water? Gabriel Zaid answers that question in a variety of surprising ways, many of them witty, all of them provocative."Anne Fadiman, Author of Ex-Libris"A truly original book about books. Destined to be a classic!"Enrique Krauze, Author of Mexico: Biography of Power, Editor of Letras Libres"Gabriel Zaid's small gem of a book manages to be both delectable and useful, like chocolate fortified with vitamins. His rare blend of wisdom and savvy practical sense should make essential and heartening reading for anyone who cares about the future of books and the life of the mind."Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Author of Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books"Gabriel Zaid is a marvelously elegant and playful writera cosmopolitan critic with sound judgment and a light touch. He is a jewel of Latin American letters, which is no small thing to be. Read himyou'll see."Paul Berman"'So many books,' a phrase usually muttered with despair, is transformed into an expression of awe and joy by Gabriel Zaid. Arguing that books are the essential part of the great conversation we call culture and civilization, So Many Books reminds us that reading (and, by extension, writing and publishing) is a business, a vanity, a vocation, an avocation, a moral and political act, a hedonistic pursuit, all of the aforementioned, none of the aforementioned, and is often a miracle."Doug Dutton"Zaid traces the preoccupation with reading back through Dr. Johnson, Seneca, and even the Bible ('Of making many books there is no end'). He emerges as a playful celebrant of literary proliferation, noting that there is a new book published every thirty seconds, and optimistically points out that publishers who moan about low sales 'see as a failure what is actually a blessing: The book business, unlike newspapers, films, or television, is viable on a small scale.' Zaid, who claims to own more than ten thousand books, says he has sometimes thought that 'a chastity glove for authors who can't contain themselves' would be a good idea. Nonetheless, he cheerfully opines that 'the truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more.'"New YorkerGabriel Zaid's poetry, essays, social and cultural criticism, and business writings have been widely published throughout the Spanish-speaking world. He lives in Mexico City with the artist Basia Batorska, her paintings, three cats, and ten thousand books.Natasha Wimmer is an editor and a translator in New York City. Her recent translations include The Savage Detectives and 2666 by Roberto Bolaño andThe Way to Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa.

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Reviews

*****

Verified Buyer

The Great Conversation began centuries ago when Socrates walked and talked with his students. He saw no need to put his efforts on a scroll. After all, the conversation was a communication of ideas. However, Plato disagreed and gave us those talks in perpetuity. Today, when we discuss great subjects, such as the contents of provocative books, we continue this Great Conversation. "So Many Books" is a marvelously thoughtful, even a challenging continuation.The cover illustration depicts the TBR (to-be-read) list of a typical Amazonian reviewer. Yes? Zaid includes both subjects: that unread stack and Amazon and the role it plays in matching reader with book. Think. When you go into a bookshop--or even in Amazon's cyberspace--aren't you looking for the perfect book? After Zaid discusses microcosmic you and the perfect book you seek in your constellation of books, he expands and broadens his subject exponentially until macrocosmic proportions: Amazon.According to Zaid, eight out of ten Americans think there's a book inside waiting to meet the paper (or cyberspace). He uses mind-bending figures to make one of his major points: There are far too many books for any one person ever to read--ever! When you consider ALL the books ever written or published and how very few ever find their readers--some never being read at all!--then the question is: Why write? Do you know that eight out of ten Americans think they have a book waiting to be put on paper. Yes, I just repeated myself--to emphasize Zaid's point that there are "so many books."On a grander scale, reading books is part of that conversation. Finding the right books is the biggest problem. An author, Zaid says, sees his work "as the centre of a whole," with each author holding that belief. How then can a reader join the conversation when it seems so scattered? By accumulating "a minimum of 'flight hours' in common." His ultimate point is this: "Learning to read is the integration of units of ever-more complex meaning." I had to chuckle. That sentence reminded me of an Amazonian reviewer who recently made a declaration that he would no longer read a book unless it is worthy of being re-read. Hence, his TBR stack and actually Read-Books promote this development of "ever-more complex meaning."There are so many gems of sentences, even whole paragraphs that make THIS book a must-read one. Since the new school year began almost six weeks ago, I go to bed exhausted and can read just a few pages before konking out. I chuckled over this sentence: "Is anything more certain to make a book completely unintelligible than reading it slowly enough?" His point is that a reader must "grasp a book all at once, in its entirety." After developing his point, he concludes: "Reading is useless: it is a vice, pure pleasure." (Caught me unawares--reading so slowly, you know--until I grasped his whole point. Ha!)This review touches on just a bit of the riches inside "So Many Books." However, it is the constellation of reader and books that forms the foundation. Zaid discusses Amazon's services for readers, noting that books cannot stay on shelves because of the clamor of new ones to replace them. That's where the independent seller, as found on Amazon, serves the reader. Personal case in point: I frequently buy books for my school library and so, sell discarded books on Amazon. One such book--this is a true story!--was an old travel guide of Washington, D.C. Even though the book--to me--has historical value, I thought to put it for sale just to see. Yes, the man who wrote a series of travel guides for schools back in the '50's and '60's had a son who apparently is collecting his father's books. That I could be part of this son's constellation was a thrill beyond compare.The intermediary--the bookseller of any description (and the reviewer)--makes "the difference between daunting chaos and a diversity that encourages dialogue. Culture is conversation, and the role of the intermediary is to shape that conversation and give new meaning to readers' lives simply by helping them find the books they need to read" (133).This reviewer hopes also to be an intermediary between a future reader of "So Many Books" and the chaos of books lost "out there."

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