Updike on Books
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I've never read a word of Updike, but this quote from his essays (found on Michael Dirda's chat today) makes me want to read them all:
"If the worst comes true, and the paper book joins the papyrus scroll and parchment codex in extinction, we will miss, I predict, a number of things about it. The book as furniture. Shelved rows of books warm and brighten the starkest room, and scattered single volumes reveal mental processes in progress--books in the act of consumption, abandoned but readily resumable, tomorrow or next year . . . The book as sensual pleasure . . . it is the books of the 1920s and '30s that are most inviting with their handy size, generous margins, and sharp letterpress type . . . The book as souvenir. One's collection comes to symbolize the contents of one's mind . . . Books externalize our brains, and turn our homes into thinking bodies."
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I've never read a word of Updike, but this quote from his essays (found on Michael Dirda's chat today) makes me want to read them all:
"If the worst comes true, and the paper book joins the papyrus scroll and parchment codex in extinction, we will miss, I predict, a number of things about it. The book as furniture. Shelved rows of books warm and brighten the starkest room, and scattered single volumes reveal mental processes in progress--books in the act of consumption, abandoned but readily resumable, tomorrow or next year . . . The book as sensual pleasure . . . it is the books of the 1920s and '30s that are most inviting with their handy size, generous margins, and sharp letterpress type . . . The book as souvenir. One's collection comes to symbolize the contents of one's mind . . . Books externalize our brains, and turn our homes into thinking bodies."
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posted by Anonymous at
2:43 PM
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