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Publishers Weekly's 2002 Bookseller of the Year!

A Valentine in March
by Nicholas Basbanes

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A Valentine in March

by Nicholas Basbanes
author of A Gentle Madness and Patience and Fortitude

It happens that as a writer I have chosen as my specialty the appreciative study of what I like to think of as my kindred spirits, "book people" in all their glory. My first effort in what has become a multi-volume endeavor, A Gentle Madness, took on the world of "bibliophiles, bibliomanes, and the eternal passion for books," with the key word in that mouthful of a subtitle being "passion," and all that implies. The nature of my research is such that I combine the seat-of-the-pants skills of an investigative journalist with the disciplined approach of a traditional scholar, spending hours and hours on end in the reading rooms of libraries, the most prominent of which is the Harry Elkins Widener Library of Harvard University.

During the six years I spent researching A Gentle Madness, a day in Boston and Cambridge might involve poking through some property records at the Middlesex County Registry of Deeds or limited partnership documents at the Secretary of State's office in the morning -- as to why something like this might be appropriate for a book about books, I refer you to Chapter 6 -- followed by an entire afternoon and much of an evening engaged in the kind of associative browsing that a great repository like Widener makes exhilaratingly possible. On those occasions when I was particularly lucky -- and more often than not the gods in charge of such things were smiling -- I would find a parking place a few minutes away from the rear entrance to the library on Massachusetts Avenue, directly across the street from one of my favorite recreational haunts anywhere, the Harvard Book Store. So the drill would go something like this: An hour or so in the stacks, another hour of copying freshly located treasures on the Xerox machines, followed by a walk outside to feed the meter, grab a cup of coffee, and take a look at what was happening in the Harvard Book Store.

Those among you who are familiar with my recent book, Patience and Fortitude: A Roving Chronicle of Book People, Book Places, and Book Culture, know that I look on book places in much the same way that I regard my children -- I love them all dearly, equally, and without qualification. Some people have asked me why I use that phrase, "book places," and not "libraries" in the subtitle of the book, since the title itself is a reference to the unofficial names of the majestic lions that guard the main entrance to the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and since fully seven chapters of the book deal in one way or another with libraries of the past, libraries of the present, and libraries of the future. Well, that's true, I suppose, but my far greater concern in that book is with the much more inclusive concept of book culture. Libraries and librarians are very much an essential part of that mix, but so are book stores, booksellers, writers, readers, that wonderful world of people for whom the Roman motto, littera scripta manet -- the written word endures -- resonates on a daily basis.

To me, booking is a big deal. Whenever I go into a new city, be it for purposes of conducting an interview, giving a talk at a university or bibliophilic organization, or doing research in a library, the first thing I do after making sure the plumbing works in my hotel room is scout out the independent bookstores, the second-hand bookstores, and the antiquarian bookstores in town. First thing. And since I am writing this on February 14 -- Valentine's Day -- let me say that one of my very favorite independent book stores of all, the Harvard Book Store at 1256 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, is as authentic a book place as I know anywhere.

What do I like most about this book place and the book people who operate it? Let me count the ways. Certainly they have the new books I am interested in looking at, they have them in abundance, no big surprise there, but there also are kindred spirits who share the enthusiasm I have for reading and literature, and the selection of remainders, may I say, is about as good as it gets, and I do regard myself as an authority in this field. I could go on and on, but if you are reading this newsletter, then I am preaching to the choir, so enough said on this Massachusetts institution, and what there is about the ambiance that makes it so special.

Happy Valentine's Day -- even if it is March.

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