From Publishers Weekly
A sequel of sorts to Basbanes's earlier A Gentle Madness (on the manic nature of bookselling and book-collecting), this copious volume takes its title from the formidable lions guarding the entrance to the main branch of the New York Public Library in Manhattan. Opening with the great libraries of the past, from Alexandria to Pergamum and Glastonbury, Basbanes, former literary editor of the Worcester Sunday Telegram, segues into such venerable active libraries as those at the Vatican, Wolfenbottel and the universities of Durham, Leiden and Oxford. He visits with shrewd, sometimes eccentric book dealers who happily recount tales of bygone bibliophiles, and illustrates a variety of collections, from illuminated medieval manuscripts to volumes more valuable for who owned them than for binding or content. "I absolutely insist on keeping the same crummy look," a bookshop owner tells him proudly. "Every time I make the place too neat, business goes down." But a pathos pervades the book, for despite the huge increase in readers and book buyers, one dealer observes "a radical dismantling of high culture well under way" since the 1930s. The collector in 1939 who bought a rare book about Native American languages "by selling bottles of his own blood" has no latter-day parallel. Basbanes closes with tales of crusty benefactors like Andrew Carnegie, and interviews with librarians faced with the dilemma of too many old books that no one now wants to read. Basbanes's fund of stories will delight readers who value books for more than just a good story, have a yen for second-hand books plucked from dusty shops or look to book catalogs for suspense and excitement. 32 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. Agents, Glen Hartley and Lynn T. Chu. (Oct.)Forecast: This will undoubtedly garner much attention in the book pages, as did its predecessor, aided by a six-city author tour, a 15-city NPR campaign and print features.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In A Gentle Madness, bibliophile and longtime newspaper literary editor Basbanes explored the obsession of book collecting. Here he widens his focus to view all of book culture. He gives us his unique outlook on the great libraries and great librarians past and present, and he shares his seemingly infinite stock of stories about famous and unknown makers of books, influential booksellers, antiquarians, celebrated writers, and extraordinary readers, bibliographers, conservators, archivists, and collectors. With seemingly little underlying structure, Basbanes's remarkable stories follow one after the other until we are carried away with him on his bookish travels. Along the way, we visit the famed ancient library in Alexandria, as well as the new one now under construction there. We get intimate views of the great public libraries in New York and Boston and of various other libraries. We sit in on interviews with authors (e.g., Umberto Eco, Robert Coover), monks, and countless others. Titled after the unofficial names for the two lion statues that stand outside the New York Public Library, this book will be followed by a sequel, Life Beyond Life: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World, in January 2003. Highly recommended. Paul D'Alessandro, Portland P.L., ME Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Basbanes' extensive and ardent research into the world of books will ultimately fill three substantial volumes. The first, A Gentle Madness (1995), focused on bibliomania. In the second--which takes its title from the two marble lions guarding the Fifth Avenue New York Public Library, whose names were gleaned from Mayor LaGuardia's Depression-era radio broadcasts--Basbanes tells fascinating tales of famous and eccentric book collectors (Umberto Eco has 30,000 volumes) and secondhand booksellers (including the Bass family, owners of Manhattan's world-famous Strand Book Store) and traces the evolution of libraries. After a tour through antiquity (King Ramses I, circa 1500 B.C., composed the oldest known library motto, "House of Healing for the Soul") and a lively overview of the church's role in creating the first public libraries (in which books were chained to the shelves), Basbanes focuses on the challenges today's libraries face as books and digital information vie for limited budgets and space. After chronicling the San Francisco Public Library debacle, in which valuable books were carted to landfills, and quoting such admirable book lovers as librarian Lawrence Clark Powell and Alfred Kazin, Basbanes concludes with an eloquent, knowledgeable, and invaluable argument for maintaining a balance between the traditional and the new. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description

In his national bestseller, A Gentle Madness, Nicholas Basbanes explored the sweet obsession people feel to possess books. Now, Basbanes continues his adventures among the "gently mad" on an irresistible journey to the great libraries of the past -- from Alexandria to Glastonbury -- and to contemporary collections at the Vatican, Wolfenbüttel, and erudite universities. Along the way, he drops in on eccentric book dealers and regales us with stories about unforgettable collectors, such as the gentleman who bought a rare book in 1939 "by selling bottles of his own blood."

Taking the book's grand title from the marble lions guarding the New York Public Library at 42nd Street, Basbanes both entertains and delights. And once again, as Scott Turow aptly noted, "Basbanes makes you love books, the collections he writes about, and the volume in your hand."


About the Author
Nicholas A. Basbanes was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1943, graduated from Bates College in 1965, and received a master of arts degree from Pennsylvania State University while serving as a naval officer aboard the aircraft carrier Oriskany in the Tonkin Gulf in 1969. An award-winning investigative reporter during the early 1970s, Basbanes was literary editor of the Worcester Sunday Telegram from 1978 to 1991, and for the next eight years wrote a nationally syndicated column on books and authors. He is a former president of the Friends of the Robert H. Goddard Library of Clark University, which has established a student book-collecting competition in his honor. His first book, A Gentle Madness, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

FROM THE PUBLISHER