Writers Reveal Their Library, Their Favorites and Other Recommendations

As words and stories are increasingly disseminated through digital means, the significance of the book as object—whether pristine collectible or battered relic—is growing as well. Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books spotlights the personal libraries of thirteen favorite novelists who share their collections with readers. Stunning photographs provide full views of the libraries and close-ups of individual volumes: first editions, worn textbooks, pristine hardcovers, and childhood companions.

In her introduction, Leah Price muses on the history and future of the bookshelf, asking what books can tell us about their owners and what readers can tell us about their collections. Supplementing the photographs are Price's interviews with each author, which probe the relation of writing to reading, collecting, and arranging books. Each writer provides a list of top ten favorite titles, offering unique personal histories along with suggestions for every bibliophile.

Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books features the personal libraries of Alison Bechdel, Stephen Carter, Junot Díaz, Rebecca Goldstein and Stephen Pinker, Lev Grossman and Sophie Gee, Jonathan Lethem, Claire Messud and James Wood, Philip Pullman, Gary Shteyngart, and Edmund White.

Some questions that will give you a flavor of what this book contains:

 Unpacking My Library Writers Quiz Questions:

1. Which author recently donated a thousand books to a non-profit charity bookstore?
2. Which writer keeps the complete series of Sopranos DVDs on a bookshelf (that also contains Dante and Charles Dickens)?
3. Which writer’s library also houses a nearly-complete, hand-made (by the writer) rocking horse?
4. Which writer rereads Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse every year?
5. Which writer’s bookshelves include copies of Dolphins, Whales, and Other Sea Mammals and Reptiles and Amphibians, books that were prizes for coming in at the top of the class in third and fourth grade?
6. Whose top ten list includes A Guide for the Undehemorrhoided by Charles Willeford?
7. Which writer puts unwanted books outside on the curb, and then waits to see how long it takes them to find new owners?
8. Whose first book purchase, at age 14, was a copy of Throeau’s Walden?
9. Which writer could also, happily, produce a top ten list of cookbooks?
10. Which writer appeared on an episode of the TV show I Want That extolling the virtues of his/her preferred brand of bookshelf?
11. About the future of the printed book, which writer said, “I figure books survived the Dark Ages—why couldn’t they survive the Age of Darkest Capital”?
12. Which writer has multiple shelves devoted exclusively to chess books?
13. Who doesn’t feel true ownership of a book until it’s “bespangled” with Post-its, highlighted in multiple colors, and filled with “incriminating marginalia”?

(list of questions courtesy of  Yale Press Log.)