Godey’s Lady’s Book speaks up for herself

Shepherding Autobiography of a Book into the world I find myself checking out other books about books. I brought home from the Claremont Branch two books that (totally coincidentally?) have titles that riff on books by Raymond Carver, Where I’m Reading From by Tim Parks (Carver title: Where I’m Calling From) and What We Talk About When We Talk About Books by Leah Price (Carver title: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love). I enjoyed both. I wrote to Leah Price via her website, hitting her up for a blurb. No response. Ah well. Everybody’s busy. Plus it’s pretty weird, this writing to a stranger out of the blue to ask them to endorse your book. So I totally understand her ignoring me. One of the arguments for going for an MFA in creative writing is the networking — you’ll have professors who’ll provide blurbs! Maybe!

Leah Price may not have seen Autobiography of a Book yet, but she did find another literary object speaking up for itself:

In 1855, the American magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book ran a story titled ‘The life and Adventures of a Number of Godey’s Lady’s Book Addressed Particularly to Borrowers, Having Been Taken Down in Shorthand from a Narration Made by Itself.’ The ‘number’ (what we would call an issue) complains bitterly of the wear and tear it suffered when lent by subscribers to all their friends. Each girl should buy their own copy, the long-suffering magazine declared, the same way she bought her own bonnet: ‘How would you like that passing from head to head?’

Price also brings back to light a fun list. It's a list of coinages meant to blacken the reputations of those skinflints who borrow — but don’t buy — books:

book weevil

borrocole

libracide

booklooter

bookbum

bookkibitzer

culture vulture

greeper

bookbummer

bookaneer

blifter

biblioacquisiac

book buzzard

greader

Price’s source is dated 1931. I don’t think any of these pejoratives caught on. Considering the love of the bookish for public libraries, I’m guessing there isn’t a critical mass for shunning the infamous borrower. 

source: 

What We Talk About When We Talk About Books

by Leah Price

2019. Basic Books, New York