Patience and Fortitude: Wherein a Colorful Cast of Determined Book Collectors, Dealers, and Librarians Go About the Quixotic Task of Preserving a Legacy

By Nicholas A. Basbanes

Book Overview

"Compulsory for anyone seriously interested in books or curious about the manic nature of collecting." --New York Times Book Review 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."

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060196955
• ISBN13: 9780060196950
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 656 Pages
• Weight: 2.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A bibliophage is a person who devours books

This is an engaging compilation of book talk topics. Anecdotes abound. The London Library celebrated its one hundred fiftieth anniversary in 1991. Its counterparts are the Library Company of Philadelphia, the New York Society Library, the Boston Athenaeum. It is not a club. There is silence maintained in the London Library reading room. Some writers do their writing there. Penelope Fitzgerald found Novalis's letters...

Love books?

I still have not been able to read A Gentle Madness, but from previous reviews, I can get the sense that there is a similar theme to this one. As for Patience and Fortitude--for any book lover, you immediately become overwhelmed by Basbanes' and his interviewees' passion for books. Moreover, the more you read about some of the great collections covered in this book, the more you want to see for yourself. For me, the most...

Second Installment Of A Classic

As he did with the first volume, "A Gentle Madness", Nicholas Basbanes has written a book for a very wide audience. "Patience And Fortitude", goes well beyond any confines that would limit the work to readers interested only in the smallest of details that would be of importance to only the most addicted of bibliophiles. This is a history book, a political science book, a work that discusses education, and a book that addresses...

Everything (Almost) You Needed to Know About Books,

Nicholas Basbanes has written the second of a projected trilogy about the love of his life: books. Following the wonderful "A Gentle Madness", "Patience and Fortitude" (the names of the two stone lions flanking the entrance to New York Public Library) deals largely with the storage and retrieval of books from ancient times till today. It begins with the ancient world's great library in Alexandria where the entirety of Western...

For all bibliophiles

Patience and Fortitude continues the work Nicholas Basbanes began with A Gentle Madness several years ago. It is another great compilation of stories about book collectors, but it goes further by describing great libraries of the past, such as Alexandria, Pergamum, and St. Gall; and of the present, including a fascinating comparison of the new British Library in London and France's Bibliotheque National. There are also...