Packing My Library: An Elegy and Ten Digressions
Packing My Library: An Elegy and Ten Digressions by Alberto Manguel
Published: 2018
Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
Length: 03:54 (160 pages)
I love books on books. I’m always looking for more to read, and I really enjoyed this one. It’s less about specific titles as it is about a life surrounded by books. Alberto Manguel moved from a large home in France to a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment and had to deal with his home library of 35,000 books – deciding which to bring, which to store, and which to discard. The title is a play on Walter Benjamin’s Unpacking My Library (which I have yet to read) and the story of packing his library is interrupted with ten digressions, from the drive to own the books he loves and the importance of public libraries for a society to the impact readers, and the stories they carry with them, have had on our history.
I was unfamiliar with Alberto Manguel before this, but he has many books on reading and libraries and seems to be quite popular, so I’ll be exploring his other writing soon. I loved the stories he decided to tell in this, both his childhood stories as well as the historic moments in reading history. Some of the digressions were more interesting than others, but overall I found it insightful and beautifully written. I remember marking down some quotes somewhere but can’t seem to find them, which is a shame, but I could easily see myself re-listening to this in the near-future. It happens to be quite short, which, if I’m honest, makes a re-read much more likely.
Manguel was born in Argentina and has lived all around the world, spending close to twenty years living in Canada, gaining citizenship here and regularly writing for The Globe and Mail (among other publications around the world). He moved to France in 2000, renovating a medieval church as his home, and has since become the director of the Argentina National Library. This video from a French television programme offers a tour of his old personal library:
The Paris Review posted an excerpt of Packing My Library.
12 Comments
theorangutanlibrarian
That’s incredible! I can’t imagine 30000 books! (well, I can imagine it, but that’s definitely the dream 😉 )
Rob
At first I thought I would die from to-read-list anxiety, but I guess at this point that no longer really matters.
Michael @ Knowledge Lost
Wasn’t really a fan of this one, I think there were too many digressions, I much prefer The Library at Night.
Rob
Some definitely dragged, and to be honest I had trouble recalling specifics from the book when I wrote this, so I’m not sure how much of it stuck, but I found it enjoyable at the time.
Good to hear you liked The Library at Night. I’ll be getting to that eventually.
nikki @bookpunks
Oooh sounds like a nice one. I’d never heard of the author, but must look into.
Rob
He’s written quite a few books, all around reading and libraries, so I’m looking forward to exploring more.
Ruthiella
I think that was William Boyd at the beginning of the chat show!
That’s quite a collection of books Manguel had. THREE ROOMS. Makes me feel like I’m a minimalist. He he.
Rob
Bit embarrassed to admit that I have no idea who that is, but it does appear to be him! Now I have a new author to look into, hah.
And yeah, makes me feel a bit better about my shelves.
Ruthiella
If you want to try a book by Boyd, read Any Human Heart . I think it is easily his best.
Rob
Thanks, I’ll have a look!
Christina Gibbs
This one is on my TRB list. I loved Manguel’s “A History of Reading”. It’s hefty but extremely interesting.
Rob
Ooh, I’ll have to have a look at A History of Reading next!