Bound to Last: 30 Writers on Their Most Cherished Book

In this collection of essays from 30 contemporary writers about books important to them, the role of the physical book in the life of the reader is telling. Manning (The Things That Need Doing: A Memoir) exalts the "tactile sensation of turning a page, the sight of my bookmark inching along night after night." Danielle Trussoni recalls nabbing her copy of Nabokov's Speak, Memory from the back of a boyfriend's pick-up truck and travelling with it around the world. Poet Nick Flynn declares that e-books should be reserved for "the books whose writers forget that language is a plastic material, that the book is sculptural." David Hajdu recalls his obsession with the marginalia of his used copy of Ellison's Invisible Man; what he refers to as "the spectral presence of an unknown other reader." For many, books are family heirlooms, powerful reminders of the past. For Karen Green, widow of author David Foster Wallace, a collection of a lost loved-one's books are like living with a ghost. These essays remind us that books can be living, breathing organisms, as well as powerful artifacts from our personal pasts. (Nov.)