The Bloomsbury Review® BookLover's® Guide:
A Collection of Tips, Techniques,
Anecdotes, Controversies &
Suggestions for the Home Library
Written & Edited by Patricia Jean Wagner
Illustrated by Sherry L. Watson
Foreword by Clarissa Pinkerton Estes, Ph.D.
Published by The Bloomsbury Review®
$21.95 cloth, ISBN 0-9631589-3-7
$12.95 paperback, ISBN 0-9631589-4-5
$59.95, special signed & numbered Limited Edition, ISBN 0-9631589-5-3
The Bloomsbury Review® BookLover's® Guide is a humorous and fact-filled almanac about the care of books and home libraries, with valuable information for booklovers®, including tips on how to find the best books and how to build, organize, and maintain your home library. You will also find information about the book arts, book repair, book collecting, books and magazines about books, book organizations, mail-order resources, book-related online services, and more.
For three years, the author interviewed professional book conservators, librarians, book dealers, collectors, archivists, artists, and publishers for their best advice. She tested products, attended classes, scanned databases, and subscribed to magazines about books. She also asked dozens of home librarians about their collections, discovered a few sacred cows in the process, and good-naturedly began to question some of her sources. The result is expert information and humorous insight.
The Bloomsbury Review® BookLover's® Guide includes references to more than 113 books about books; 66 catalogs for books, mail-order products, and supplies; 57 magazines and newsletters about books; more than 70 professional and amateur book and library organizations; and 16 online book resources.
Patricia Jean Wagner has loved books throughout her careers as poet, printer, publisher, bookstore clerk, author, small-press advocate, bookstore founder, journalist, book designer, typographic junkie, and, for the last 16 years, book reviewer and contributing editor as well as columnist ("The Practical Bookshelf") for The Bloomsbury Review. Sherry L. Watson is a freelance illustrator with a strong preference for creating fantasy and humor art in almost any medium. Bestselling author Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves, has contributed a Foreword to the book entitled "The Book As Beloved."
For more information or to schedule an interview with Patricia Jean Wagner, contact: Tom Auer, The Bloomsbury Review®
303/863-0406; fax: 303/863-0408
*****
What reviewers have said about
The Bloomsbury Review® BookLover's® Guide
"...the best book I have ever read
for people who love books."
-- Ron Gross, Lifelong Learning Today
" Wagner writes in an irreverent
style and presents much expert information in an enjoyable way. Her work fills a niche
...by providing a source aimed at the home librarian that is comprehensive, serious, and
up-to-date."
-- Library Journal
"... useful, interesting and
entertaining information about books."
-- Chicago Books in Review
"Wagner offers valuable information
for booklovers®, including tips on how to find the best books and how to
build, organize and maintain a home library."
-- Biblio
"Pat Wagner is to be congratulated
for this ultimate book about books."
-- TRANET
"The author's common sensical
approach works well for either the casual reader who wants to get a little more organized
or the serious collector who has a significant monetary investment to protect. ... The
book's light-hearted tone makes it eminently readable and enjoyable."
-- Small Press Review
"While a few sophisticated book
collectors may find this delightful booklover's® guide to be too simple for
their tastes, most book collectors, and certainly all would-be book collectors, will find
it an inexpensive vade-me-cum as they pursue their hobby."
-- Norman D. Stevens, ABC Newsletter
"This is a true [book] fanatic's
resource."
-- Antonio Lopez, Santa Fe New Mexican
"Congratulations on this
no-holds-barred, tell-it-like-it-is, ain't-it-grand treasure chest resource of and for the
book life... Book people everywhere have been waiting for this book."
-- Bernadine Clark, author of The Company of Books: Notes on Readers and Their
Collections
"From A to Z, this is a most
entertaining and valuable tool for those of us who treasure books... I honestly can't
recall another book that boasts quite the breadth of material to be found in these
pages."
--William W. Starr, The State, Columbia, SC
"... absolutely essential for the
serious bibliophile."
-- Alan Dumas, Rocky Mountain News
"Wagner offers not only practical
suggestions but reassurance that other people share the joys and suffer the pains of
pathological book collecting. She sprinkles her amiable discussion of home libraries with
hundreds of quotes and anecdotes ... These stories and Wagner's humor will keep you
reading; the resources, tips, and brainstorms she has collected will make you glad you
did."
-- Matthew T. Humphrey, San Francisco Review
" ... truly the best friend a
booklover® can have. It is a compendium of everything you could possibly [want
to] know about that bizarre obsession called book collecting."
-- Bob Jackson, The Independent Review, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia