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Books: A Manifesto—Or, How to Build a Library
This is a book about books, about the subversive power of reading and the strange, enduring magic of books as objects.
Ever since childhood, books have been at the centre of Ian Patterson’s life, as a poet, teacher, translator, bookseller and collector. As he constructs the last of many libraries, he makes an impassioned case for the radical importance of reading in our lives – from Proust to Jilly Cooper, from golden-age detective novels to avant-garde poetry.
Wise, irreverent and exhilaratingly wide-ranging, Books: A Manifesto reminds us that poems know things that we might not yet know ourselves, urges us to seek out the puzzles alive in the art of translation and celebrates the singular elasticity of the ‘bookshop minute’. But even more than this, the book insists on reading not as a luxury but a necessary part of reality: we live within language, and when we think, it’s with the tools that reading gives us.
Our time of cultural and political crisis demands more than books – but without them, and without the breadth of knowledge, sense of history, awareness of alternatives and hope for the future they offer, things will not get better. At once a primer for enriching your own library and a manifesto for why that matters, this book is an invitation to a deeper, richer world of thought and feeling – and a reminder of just how much books matter.
Ever since childhood, books have been at the centre of Ian Patterson’s life, as a poet, teacher, translator, bookseller and collector. As he constructs the last of many libraries, he makes an impassioned case for the radical importance of reading in our lives – from Proust to Jilly Cooper, from golden-age detective novels to avant-garde poetry.
Wise, irreverent and exhilaratingly wide-ranging, Books: A Manifesto reminds us that poems know things that we might not yet know ourselves, urges us to seek out the puzzles alive in the art of translation and celebrates the singular elasticity of the ‘bookshop minute’. But even more than this, the book insists on reading not as a luxury but a necessary part of reality: we live within language, and when we think, it’s with the tools that reading gives us.
Our time of cultural and political crisis demands more than books – but without them, and without the breadth of knowledge, sense of history, awareness of alternatives and hope for the future they offer, things will not get better. At once a primer for enriching your own library and a manifesto for why that matters, this book is an invitation to a deeper, richer world of thought and feeling – and a reminder of just how much books matter.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published September 11, 2025
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809 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 20, 2025
"I am a reader and an accumulator and collector of books."
Partly a memoir of a book-lover's life, partly a work of literary criticism, Patterson's book is a detailed, if sometimes technical, tour of a bookshelf and its possibilities. He combines wide-ranging commentaries on the pleasures of out-of-print books with close readings of individual poems; even if BOOKS: A MANIFESTO can be heavy on contextual detail, Patterson manages to write not just for a literary readership but to offer persuasive suggestions for people needing a push to get into appreciating books. I particularly appreciated Patterson's commitment to highlighting the value of genre fiction and "non-literary" novels, an issue that's close to my heart: he devotes roughly the same space to Marcel Proust as he does Jilly Cooper. Thoughtful and informative, BOOKS: A MANIFESTO has something for book-lovers of all types.
Partly a memoir of a book-lover's life, partly a work of literary criticism, Patterson's book is a detailed, if sometimes technical, tour of a bookshelf and its possibilities. He combines wide-ranging commentaries on the pleasures of out-of-print books with close readings of individual poems; even if BOOKS: A MANIFESTO can be heavy on contextual detail, Patterson manages to write not just for a literary readership but to offer persuasive suggestions for people needing a push to get into appreciating books. I particularly appreciated Patterson's commitment to highlighting the value of genre fiction and "non-literary" novels, an issue that's close to my heart: he devotes roughly the same space to Marcel Proust as he does Jilly Cooper. Thoughtful and informative, BOOKS: A MANIFESTO has something for book-lovers of all types.
October 15, 2025
I think many book lovers dream of their own library, Ian Patterson has a building project in which he can just do that. As he talks about the project, he discusses the love of books from crime and thrillers to romance to poetry and translations. It started off well, but I found the last few chapters a bit heavy.
October 6, 2025
Started off so beautifully like a conversation but then it meandered into chapters of academic analysis on the different genres and historical writers. Interestingly, this was the same experience I had with his wife Olivia Laing’s writing.
October 5, 2025
Wise, nostalgic, galvanising—a rallying cry for us to recognise the transformative power of books.
November 13, 2025
Ian Patterson is a poet, translator, book collector and former academic (and bookseller). In "Books: A Manifesto or, How to Build a Library", he describes building a library in an outhouse in his new home, finally realising that there will not be enough room either there or his home for all the books he has. At the same time, he writes about the importance of books (and particularly print books) and literature to our well-being and humanity.
During the course of the book he talks about fiction, non-fiction and poetry, his analysis including modernist literary fiction, fiction from the past, poetry contemporary and old and genre fictions such as crime, science fiction and romance. He looks at both well known writers and those who have been forgotten but he believes deserve to be reprinted.
Along the way, the reader will come across some surprises. For example, most of one chapter is devoted to the saucy upper class romances of Jilly Cooper. We discover he first began reading Cooper as a diversion when his first wife, fellow writer Jenny Diski was dying. He soon became fond of her raunchy tales and provides a detailed analyses of her work, even at one point comparing aspects of her work to Charles Dickens and the contemporary literary novelist Ali Smith! I must admit I have never read any Jilly Cooper, but after reading Patterson's account, I may now do so.
There is also a whole chapter on the detective novel (one of my favourite genres) and particularly on the "Golden Age" of the genre, and features writers like Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, as well as references to more recent crime writers.
There are also chapters on forgotten writers, well-loved novelists, political writers, modernism, the problems of translating from one language to another and analysis of poetry, both old and new, often combining his literary analysis with bits of autobiography. He is particularly fond of modernist writers like Proust, Joyce and Woolf - and that is where I do part company with him: I find both Proust and Joyce close to unreadable, though Virginia Woolf's books do have the advantage of being short. But his belief in the importance of such modernist writers is well argued.
The chapter dedicated to poetry is particularly interesting. Again, I part company with him when he writes about the qualities of contemporary poets who dispense with normal language structure, but I am at one with him when he writes with delight about William Blake, a poet whose work I have written about myself and who is a never-ending source of pleasure, reflection and analysis, and who writes with beauty and at times unusual syntax. I firmly believe that anyone who claims to fully understand Blake is either delusional or lying!
He also writes about the advantages of print books over electronic ones, mentioning the tactile, sensual and visual aspects of the book. He describes standing in front of his bookshelves, staring at the titles and remembering the joys they brought. I do that too!
If you love books, you will enjoy this idiosyncratic but wonderful title. You won't agree with every point of view of his, but you will discover lots of writers you may not have come across. I'm already making a list of some forgotten writers whose work I want to track down.
During the course of the book he talks about fiction, non-fiction and poetry, his analysis including modernist literary fiction, fiction from the past, poetry contemporary and old and genre fictions such as crime, science fiction and romance. He looks at both well known writers and those who have been forgotten but he believes deserve to be reprinted.
Along the way, the reader will come across some surprises. For example, most of one chapter is devoted to the saucy upper class romances of Jilly Cooper. We discover he first began reading Cooper as a diversion when his first wife, fellow writer Jenny Diski was dying. He soon became fond of her raunchy tales and provides a detailed analyses of her work, even at one point comparing aspects of her work to Charles Dickens and the contemporary literary novelist Ali Smith! I must admit I have never read any Jilly Cooper, but after reading Patterson's account, I may now do so.
There is also a whole chapter on the detective novel (one of my favourite genres) and particularly on the "Golden Age" of the genre, and features writers like Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, as well as references to more recent crime writers.
There are also chapters on forgotten writers, well-loved novelists, political writers, modernism, the problems of translating from one language to another and analysis of poetry, both old and new, often combining his literary analysis with bits of autobiography. He is particularly fond of modernist writers like Proust, Joyce and Woolf - and that is where I do part company with him: I find both Proust and Joyce close to unreadable, though Virginia Woolf's books do have the advantage of being short. But his belief in the importance of such modernist writers is well argued.
The chapter dedicated to poetry is particularly interesting. Again, I part company with him when he writes about the qualities of contemporary poets who dispense with normal language structure, but I am at one with him when he writes with delight about William Blake, a poet whose work I have written about myself and who is a never-ending source of pleasure, reflection and analysis, and who writes with beauty and at times unusual syntax. I firmly believe that anyone who claims to fully understand Blake is either delusional or lying!
He also writes about the advantages of print books over electronic ones, mentioning the tactile, sensual and visual aspects of the book. He describes standing in front of his bookshelves, staring at the titles and remembering the joys they brought. I do that too!
If you love books, you will enjoy this idiosyncratic but wonderful title. You won't agree with every point of view of his, but you will discover lots of writers you may not have come across. I'm already making a list of some forgotten writers whose work I want to track down.
October 20, 2025
If you’ve ever moved home and own a lot of books you will know what an encumbrance those cherished, reassuring objects can become, filling box after box, and leaving one questioning why so many books were bought and accumulated in the first place.
As a lifelong bibliophile, collector, and accumulator of books, Ian Patterson is forced to confront this logistical challenge as he retires from Queen’s college and moves from Cambridge to a village in Suffolk with his wife, the writer Olivia Laing. As a lifetime of reading is packed away into moving boxes, Ian Patterson embarks on a riveting autobiographical memoir and manifesto on the vital importance reading in our lives.
Each chapter in the book starts with an update on the construction of Ian Patterson’s library at his new home, which serves as the springboard for an exploration on a wide range topics ranging from canon formation and rare books, detective fiction, political commentary, to anectodes from Ian Patterson’s own life.
A major strength of the book is how it manages to pack such wide-ranging interests into a structure and narrative that is highly readable and (mostly) fluid. Patterson occasionally wanders off course into scholarly asides (which I skipped), but those don’t break the book’s momentum or readability and are, if anything, part of the pleasure of reading it.
Reading Books: A Manifesto feels like attending a university seminar—erudite, conversational, full of unexpected connections. It reignited my interest in reading more critically and less passively, and filled my notebook with “to read” books and ideas.
As a lifelong bibliophile, collector, and accumulator of books, Ian Patterson is forced to confront this logistical challenge as he retires from Queen’s college and moves from Cambridge to a village in Suffolk with his wife, the writer Olivia Laing. As a lifetime of reading is packed away into moving boxes, Ian Patterson embarks on a riveting autobiographical memoir and manifesto on the vital importance reading in our lives.
Each chapter in the book starts with an update on the construction of Ian Patterson’s library at his new home, which serves as the springboard for an exploration on a wide range topics ranging from canon formation and rare books, detective fiction, political commentary, to anectodes from Ian Patterson’s own life.
A major strength of the book is how it manages to pack such wide-ranging interests into a structure and narrative that is highly readable and (mostly) fluid. Patterson occasionally wanders off course into scholarly asides (which I skipped), but those don’t break the book’s momentum or readability and are, if anything, part of the pleasure of reading it.
Reading Books: A Manifesto feels like attending a university seminar—erudite, conversational, full of unexpected connections. It reignited my interest in reading more critically and less passively, and filled my notebook with “to read” books and ideas.
December 18, 2025
Rather an odd mixture…
All of the content about loving books and everything about them, I was completely at home with, and the chapters on genres was interesting, and in the case of poetry, enough to make me question a lifetime of assumptions. What I found odd, especially from someone who purports to have been a revolutionary socialist in the past, was the easy passing by of right wing drivel by the likes of Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie. Couple this with disdain and dismissal of some classic writers of the past, whilst spending what seemed like pages and pages of academese about Jilly Cooper, and the author’s boasting about his own library (both the books and the building), and I can’t say that this was an enjoyable read!
All of the content about loving books and everything about them, I was completely at home with, and the chapters on genres was interesting, and in the case of poetry, enough to make me question a lifetime of assumptions. What I found odd, especially from someone who purports to have been a revolutionary socialist in the past, was the easy passing by of right wing drivel by the likes of Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie. Couple this with disdain and dismissal of some classic writers of the past, whilst spending what seemed like pages and pages of academese about Jilly Cooper, and the author’s boasting about his own library (both the books and the building), and I can’t say that this was an enjoyable read!
December 29, 2025
Another woke academics who listen himself, make an exercise in "let me show my erudition",think he got the truth more than anybody else. Push on us his politics ( because of Brexit, people are just racist, they need to be educated, that why they don't read foreign litterature…short on argument)
it become so annoying, not finish.
Skip. Not really about books.
its about him.
it become so annoying, not finish.
Skip. Not really about books.
its about him.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews