Burning books.

Burning books. Burning books. By Matthew Fishburn. Basingstoke: PalgraveMacmillan, 2008. 256 pp. US$59.95 hard cover ISBN ISBNabbr.International Standard Book NumberISBNInternational Standard Book NumberISBNn abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m13: 9780230553286. Books: a memoir. By Larry McMurtry Larry McMurtry (born June 3, 1936 in Wichita Falls, Texas) is a novelist, screenwriter and essayist.McMurtry is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1985 novel Lonesome Dove . New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of : Simon & Schuster Simon & SchusterU.S. publishing company. It was founded in 1924 by Richard L. Simon (1899–1960) and M. Lincoln Schuster (1897–1970), whose initial project, the original crossword-puzzle book, was a best-seller. ,2008. 259 pp. US$35.00 hard cover ISBN 9781416583349. Burning and collecting books are at the opposite ends of thebiblio-spectrum. Matthew Fishburn, a specialist with Hordern House Booksin Sydney, originally began a PhD on fire in literature but soon foundthat the subject was so vast it overwhelmed him, 'but as I talkedto people about my research, I found many assumed that I meant burningbooks and I became fascinated with the subject. At the time I wasworking on a catalogue of books about imaginary voyages and utopias andI discovered book burning regularly featured in both.' The fascinating and learned text of Burning books reflects thechronology of Fishburn's original thesis, focusing on thebackground of the book burnings in Nazi Germany, although hisintroduction, opening chapter and the postscript provide widerhistorical contexts. The postscript highlights the publication of RayBradbury's Fahrenheit 451 in 1953. Although Bradbury has said thatthe book burnings in Fahrenheit 451 were inspired by the 1933 Nazi bookburnings In 1933, Nazi Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels began the synchronization of culture, by which the arts were brought in line with Nazi goals. The government purged cultural organizations of Jews and others alleged to be politically or artistically suspect. , he affirmed in 2007 that the book itself was not aboutcensorship: 'the culprit in Fahrenheit 451 is not the state--it isthe people.' Bradbury saw television as a major threat to readingbooks. Suppressing ideas by burning books has appealed to totalitarianregimes throughout history, but was perhaps given most recognition bythe Nazi book burnings. Fishburn says that: one of the things that I found in researching this book was that you see a certain suite of famous events being discussed or mentioned constantly. So you see the Nazi burning of the books, you see Rushdie's book being burnt, being mentioned all the time, but you very rarely see that other submerged history.... If there's a regime of the censor and there's a police state, people will cleanse their own libraries. Fishburn concludes that he has sought to study 'this tensionbetween proscription and desire, rather than resolve it' and that'our relationship with books and language is never a simpleone'. According to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. Fishburn, many writers have 'reserved theidea of burning books as a possible, maybe even a necessary act ofredemption'. Fishburn notes that deliberate book burnings have declined, unlikeaccidental library or bookshop fires, although pulping of books,particularly by libraries and publishers, has increased. Fishburn liststhe well-known book losses/burnings as the Library at Alexandria, theLibrary of Congress by the British, the loss of Louvain Library in 1914,the attacks on Salman Rushdie, the bombardment of the library inSarajevo in 1992 and the National Library and Archives destruction inBaghdad in 2004. Fishburn has established a website(http://burningbookspalgrave.blogspot.com/) because 'there weremany images and even more quotes and references that did not make thecut' in his book, providing an essential supplement to Burningbooks. Did you know that novelist Ford Madox Ford used bacon rashers asbookmarks while at the breakfast table? Pulitzer Prize winner Larry McMurtry began collecting books when hewas a student at Rice University in Houston in the late 1950s, a fewyears before his novels brought him literary fame. McMurtry, the authorof some 40 books, including The last picture show, Lonesome lone��some?adj.1. a. Dejected because of a lack of companionship. See Synonyms at alone.b. Producing such dejection: a lonesome hour at the bar.2. dove andTerms of endearment en��dear��ment?n.1. The act of endearing.2. An expression of affection, such as a caress.endearmentNounan affectionate word or phraseNoun 1. , has been a writer and bookseller, or as he terms ita 'book wrangler', since the early 1960s. He describes Books:a memoir as a 'hasty account of my life with books', and itcertainly reveals an overall lack of form. McMurtry pre-empts criticismof his approach, citing that the antiquarian an��ti��quar��i��an?n.One who studies, collects, or deals in antiquities.adj.1. Of or relating to antiquarians or to the study or collecting of antiquities.2. Dealing in or having to do with old or rare books. book trade itself is as'an anecdotal culture'. Books: a memoir resembles some of thelong-gone bookshops McMurtry describes--rambling, disorganised yet withbibliophilic Adj. 1. bibliophilic - of or relating to bibliophiles jewels still to be found. McMurtry deliberately avoids, which on one level is a pity,'personality-driven comments, such as 'should Warren Howellhave bought that last suspect bunch of books? Did Johnny Jenkins gambleunwisely? Was H.P. Kraus ever friendly?' McMurtry is alsofrustratingly brief in many of his 109 short chapters, some of which areless than a page long. 'Ought Dealers to Collect?' deservedmore text, and bold statements, such as in Chapter 69 ('manybookmen ... rarely, if ever, read') are not followed through. Maybe part of the problem is that McMurtry has already writtenabout his early life and bookselling elsewhere, notably in his 1999 bookWalter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen. In the section of that book titled'Book Scouting' McMurtry recalls his life as a book scout andcollector, growing up in Archer City, a remote part of Texas, 'abookless part of a bookless state'. McMurtry later transformedArcher City into a booktown, buying up old buildings in an attempt tomake it into a 'musty Mecca for bibliomaniacs' (seehttp://www.bookedupac.com/). His Booked Up shops there now contain400,000 books in five buildings around the Archer City courthousesquare. McMurtry says the only books not stocked are his own, partlybecause he doesn't want to be asked to sign them! McMurtry's website indicated in late 2007 that he mighttemporarily close his shops for economic reasons, but happily this hasnot occurred. He acknowledges, however, that 'there are certainlybetter ways to make money than selling second-hand books'. McMurtryranges over the many booksellers he has known, from California toWashington, and laments the bookshops which have disappeared largely dueto high city rents, the Internet and ageing book buyers. McMurtry noteshis Archer City customers are all over 45. Age will not weary in the short term those book buyers, but thebookshop's infinite variety has certainly gone into cyberspace forbetter or for worse. The destruction of virtual libraries is perhaps afuture topic for Mathew Fishburn when 'the machine stops'. Colin Steele Australian National University