Fantastic Metropolis

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Michael Moorcock

When my father left my mother he left behind a handful of books, The Constable of St Nicholas by Edwin Lester Arnold, Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Mastermind of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw, Timothy Tatters (a tale of the Irish troubles by Anonymous). Apart from the Shaw and the Arnold they were all cheap editions and the browned paper and cheap red boards remain a strong memory, along with the illustrations to The Apple Cart. Later I used to cycle down to the local private lending library to get my mother’s favorite romance novels and there I discovered the bright dust wrappers of P.G.Wodehouse, much more Edgar Rice Burroughs, various thriller writers, and the westerns of Clarence E. Mulford. I preferred the private lending library (tuppence a week), which was rather like a modern video store, because they kept the covers on the books, while public libraries took them off and rebound the books. I still enjoy restoring books. I like cleaning them up, un-dog-earing the pages, cleaning and brightening the bindings, getting the dust wrappers into the best possible shape and putting plastic covers round them, reglueing, if necessary, and generally getting them into the best possible condition. On the other hand, I care very little about what condition the books are in when I buy them and have none of the collector’s desire for books which are as near to mint condition as they can be. I’m inclined to be suspicious of books which haven’t been thoroughly read. If my own library consisted of books with mint d/w-s and uncut pages, I’d feel I was advertising myself as a fool. My sympathy lies more with Wordsworth, who had a habit of slicing open the uncut pages of new books with the butter knife. Part of me always likes the idea of knowing what the original reader was eating when they first started reading the particular volume I’ve come to own.

Cheryl Morgan

I’m a reader, not a book collector. Most of my memories of books are concerned with slogging round the world with piles of books in my suitcases. But I keep doing it, and that is a measure of how much I hate reading on computer screens.

Richard Eoin Nash

Sorry to continue with the spiel here: my personal seminal cultural experiences were formed by reading print books. But if our generation continues to assume that what has been true for us will be true for younger generations we will consign linear text to the dustbin of history. Many many intelligent pubescents and adolescents are having their identity-forming experiences on-screen. If books cannot be found there, we’re not going to be able to win them back.

Vera Nazarian

My earliest memories are of books. All right, there’s also that weak, pale amber tea in a baby bottle—and then there are books. One book in particular—a volume of Homer and ancient Greek mythology in Russian, a navy blue hardcover with embossed gold type on the cover and spine. It is thick with text, and scattered all throughout are photos and reproductions of antique statuary, Greek vases, reliefs. I read that book over and over until the pages yellowed, and stared at the illustrations until I entered them. Over the years many of the pages fell out and many others simply crumbled to dust. I still have the venerable corpse of this book and consider it a personal artifact.

Ian Nichols

The first time I received an author’s copy of a book I’d written. It was like seeing a new-born child.

Lance Olsen

For me every encounter with a book takes me back to the bright afternoons of my early childhood, just before naptime, when I my mother used to read to me. Everything was Eden then, and every encounter with a book is a return to that white-light possibility space.