Books in His Life

A Passion For Books by Dale Salwak

With a book in hand, the reader is never alone.

This book provides several different benefits to its reader. As the title suggests you get a book filled with diverse writing about the passion readers have for books. But you also are entertained by a selection of wonderful essays that demonstrate that art while covering the titled topic. The interested reader is presented with a cornucopia of ideas and suggestions for reading based on the authors' passions. These passions include general topics like "Books in My Life" by G. Thomas Tanselle or essays on obsessions with individual writers like Mann and Larkin. There are also excursions into the connections between reading and art, theater, or music. And most poignant are the discussions of the impact of one's family on the life of reading and its impact on the soul. The result is something for almost everyone except, perhaps the solipsistic reader who while immersed in a book is disconnected with the rest of the world. I've heard such creatures exist, but for the rest of us readers there is the passion for books.

A Passion for Books. Dale Salwak, ed. St. Martin's Press, New York. 1999