Bound to Last: 30 Writers on Their Most Cherished Book
Lovers of the printed book, arise! Thirty of today’s top writers are here to tell you you’re not alone.\ \ In Bound to Last,an amazing array of authors comes to the passionate defense of the printed book with spirited, never-before-published essays celebrating the hardcover or paperback they hold most dear—not necessarily because of its contents, but because of its significance as a one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable object. Whether focusing on the circumstances behind how a particular book...
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Lovers of the printed book, arise! Thirty of today’s top writers are here to tell you you’re not alone.
Foreword Ray Bradbury ix\ Introduction Sean Manning xiii\ The Crying of Lot 49 and In the Heart of the Heart of the Country Jim Shepard 1\ Andersen's Fairy Tales Francine Prose 8\ The Stranger Anthony Swofford 15\ Speak, Memory Danielle Trussoni 20\ The Shadow of the Sun Nick Flynn 25\ The Bible Joyce Maynard 32\ Les Misérables Louis Ferrante 41\ Naked Lunch Elissa Schappell 46\ The Story and Its Writer Anthony Doerr 54\ Invisible Man David Hajdu 59\ Roar and More Julia Glass 65\ Das Kapital Shahriar Mandanipour 79\ The Viking Portable Dorothy Parker J. Courtney Sullivan 84\ The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, Eighth Edition Terrence Holt 92\ For Whom the Bell Tolls Philipp Meyer 101\ The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel Karen Green 108\ Mason & Dixon Jim Knipfel 115\ Emily Dickinson (Literature and Life) Xu Xiaobin 124\ Dungeon Masters Guide Ed Park 129\ Sula Susan Straight 140\ Ulysses Sean Manning 149\ Believe It or Not! Sarah Manguso 156\ William Trevor: The Collected Stories Victoria Patterson 163\ The Once and Future King Karen Joy Fowler 168\ The Carpetbaggers Rabih Alameddine 175\ The New Professional Chef, Fifth Edition Michael Ruhlman 180\ Mythology Sigrid Nunez 186\ Another Country Chris Abani 192\ Heart's Needle Christine Schutt 200\ Ship of Fools Jonathan Miles 207\ Contributors' Notes 217\ Contributors' Credits 223\ Acknowledgments 225
\ Publishers WeeklyIn 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.)\ \ \ \ \ Yvonne ZippBound to Last is a lovely ode to the dog-eared, water-stained, mouse-nibbled pleasures of a real book.\ —The Washington Post\ \
