Review: Bound To Last

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book of personal essays about books when I began reading it . . . other than a great deal of writing about the love of books in their physical, tangible form. But what I found within the pages was so much better than I could have expected.


Bound To Last: 30 Writers On Their Most Cherished Book. The title gives away the agenda: a book promoting the lasting value of the non-ebook.  And it's well worth the read for those of us who love either a well-turned sentence or a book about the love of books.  Each author in the collection muses about a book that mattered to him/her. A book that shattered their known world or transformed their sense of self, a book that became more than an object, but was, because of the object, more dear, a book that (whether from childhood or not) became part of the identity of each author.  So, of course, it's a fascinating read on so many levels.

Favourite sections from the 30? Well, there's Danielle Trussoni's notion that physical books retain something of us on the pages we read:  "I wonder if I should replace the paperback with a newer copy, perhaps try to find a first edition or at least a hardbound copy that might withstand the hardships I impose upon it. But a clean copy of Speak, Memory wouldn't be at all the same. It would be free of my presence, too clear of the traces I have left upon each page.  It would be as if the years of carrying Speak, Memory with me had not occurred at all."


And this (from the Anthony Doerr section):  "We are all mapmakers: We embed our memories everywhere, inscribing a private and intensely complicated latticework across the landscape." He goes on to write that "through stories we manage to live in multiple places, lead multiple lives. Through stories we rehearse empathy; through stories we live the emotional lives of other people . . . We fall, we drift, we lose ourselves in other selves."


Or this from Philipp Meyer:  "Books, in the end, are such an advanced technology that we have begun to take them for granted. They are cheap, superhumanly durable, they can be passed on for generations. They outlast cars, pets, and homes."  Earlier in his essay, he'd pointed out how browsing through his parents' piles of books occasioned reads he otherwise wouldn't have embarked upon. And that this experience would not have happened with a parent's ereader.  (Probably the best, most persuasive essay in the group).


As someone who owns and uses an ereader but still prefers the printed and bound word, I've been mostly disinterested in the debate about whether or not books are being threatened by the onslaught of ereaders.  For me it's obvious.  The book as object will endure because people  will continue to buy them. Or they won't.  Either the book is technologically superior or it isn't. I think it is, thus I think the book will last. Oversimplifying? Probably, but, not being in charge of any publishing businesses, I can only speak as a consumer. And speaking as a consumer means I have to put my money where my mouth is . . . if I want books to last, I have to buy them (especially new ones, and at least as many from small publishers as from the bigger names). So that's what I'm doing . . . slowly, and as I can.  It's not difficult, really. Any excuse to buy a good book is a good excuse.


* Many thanks to the nice people at Da Capo Press for sending along a review copy and giving me the chance to read a book I might otherwise have overlooked.