Book Review: Every Book Its Reader by Nicholas A. Basbanes

If you know me at all, you know how I feel about books. There is nearly always one within arms' reach, and there is often one in my bag or car, just in case I can steal a few minutes reading during those idle moments forced on us by society, like red lights. I'm a book geek, which, if you ask some, isn't so bad.

Nicholas A. Basbanes, author of Every Book Its Reader, may be the written word's greatest champion. A former investigative reporter and literary editor, Basbanes spends his time these days working on a column for Fine Books & Collections and writing books about books (just saying that makes me geek out a bit).  Published in 2006, Every Book is a meandering and lovingly composed investigation into the ways books have shaped history. While it took me a while to read, there was never a question of seeing it finished.

The book's raison d'être is that reading matters. It's important to people great and small, because books shape their readers. Whether it be fiction our non, what we read changes us. In reading, we come to new ideas, far off places, or new ways of looking at the mundane. Even when we hate a book, it still generates emotion, and that moves us and shapes our personality. And just as we are shaped individually, so it is the individual reader which shapes the group, through the common topic of a certain book. Books like The Origin of Species (Happy Belated Birthday, Mr. Darwin) can move world thought, but the humble, forgettable — dare it be said? — fun books, can mark the days and hours of our lives. Every Book looks at them all, or examples anyway, and ruminates over people who have been changed through something so simply complex as reading.

Article Author: CB

Visit CB's author page