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Jacques Bonnet’s Followers (14)
Jacques Bonnet
More books by Jacques Bonnet…
“The important thing is not so much to read fast, as to read each book at the speed it deserves. It is as regrettable to spend too much time on some books as it is to read others too quickly. There are books you know well, just from flicking through them, others you only grasp at second or third reading, and others again which will last you a lifetime.”
― Phantoms on the Bookshelves
― Phantoms on the Bookshelves
“Every time you open a book for the first time, there is something akin to safe-breaking about it. Yes, that's exactly it: the frantic reader is like a burglar who has spent hours digging a tunnel to enter the strongroom of a bank. He emerges face to face with hundreds of strongboxes, all identical, and opens them one by one. And each time a box is opened, it loses its anonymity and becomes unique: one is filled with paintings, another with a bundle of banknotes, a third with jewels or letters tied in ribbon, engravings, objects of no value at all, silverware, photos, gold sovereigns, dried flowers, files of paper, crystal glasses, or children’s toys--and so on. There is something intoxicating about opening a new one, finding its contents and feeling overjoyed that in a trice one is no longer in front of a set of boxes, but in the presence of the riches and wretched banalities that make up human existence.”
― Phantoms on the Bookshelves
― Phantoms on the Bookshelves
“Prolific libraries take on an independent existence, and become living things...We may have chosen its themes, and the general pathways along which it will develop, but we can only stand and watch as it invades all the walls of the room, climbs to the ceiling, annexes the other rooms one by one, expelling anything that gets in the way. It eliminates pictures hanging on the walls, or ornaments that obstruct its advance; it moves on with its necessary but cumbersome acolytes -- stools and ladders -- and forces its owner into constant reorganization since its progress is not linear and calls for ever new kinds of diviion. At the same time, it is undeniably the reflection, the twin image of its master. To anyone with the insight to decode it, the fundamental character of the librarian will emerge as one's eye travels along the bookshelves. indeed no library of any size is like another, none has the same personality. (pp. 30-31)”
― Phantoms on the Bookshelves
― Phantoms on the Bookshelves
Topics Mentioning This Author
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 & 2026 Readi...: January's New Beginnings Challenge | 221 | 433 | Feb 19, 2013 10:28AM | |
| 2025 & 2026 Readi...: Kaitlin's 104+ Books for 2013 (and other challenges) | 116 | 185 | Sep 05, 2013 07:45PM | |
| 2025 & 2026 Readi...: Let's Turn Pages Yearly Challenge | 337 | 791 | Jan 01, 2014 10:38AM | |
| 2025 & 2026 Readi...: The Every Year Challenge - 2013 | 323 | 1252 | Jan 03, 2014 01:36PM |
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