A Pound of Paper : Confessions of a Book Addict

Rating:
Summary: A Literary Lesson
Review:

I rated this book 5*'s but not in the normal fashion.The title got my attention as I like "books about books";of which there are a varied lot.To start with,this book is well titled;A Pound of Paper,how unpretentious can you get?
Now, as to my rating:
As an overall book,I enjoyed it at times,at other times I found it a drag,I skipped a lot;but still couldn't put it down.
I rated it 5*'s;but only by adding up 5 single *'s:
1*-As a biography,for anyone who knows the author;I had not
heard of him.
1*- Stories about experiences of buying books and searching
for 1st.editions,inscribed tomes,etc.
1*-Telling what makes a bibliophile "tick".I noted many of
the same traits in myself.
1*- Description of book buying and selling in France.
1*- For the three appendicies.
Each of these areas was overshadowed by his experiences;but so many writers and books were of no interest to me and the whole of Sci-Fi leaves me cold as I don't tend to read much of it;although one with that interest would probably rate the book a 5*,for that material alone.Also,the book is heavily slanted to British and Aussie books and hardly mentions anything else.This is understandable as this was where he lived and where his interests lie.
Nevertheless any bibliophile will enjoy the book and it is really a 5*.I plan to keep it ,mainly for the appendicies.

Rating:
Summary: A Pound of Pleasure
Review: By Bill Marsano. The very first thing you should know is that this is a book about collecting, not just book collecting. Collecting--the determined search for specific objects on a given theme--is pretty much the same kind of mania for all collectors, whether they're after vintage cars, rare stamps and coins or--as in this case--books, and whether the treasure they seeks are top dollar or bottom. Every kind of collecting develops its own little cultures and subcultures, its side streets and back alleys, its characters loved or hated or legendary. And, of course, its litany of heart-lifting successes and heart-breaking failures. So if you collect (as distinct from accumulate) or if you know a collector, this book is a definite buy.

John Baxter's collecting, which began with science fiction, made him into a short-story writer then a scriptwriter then a novelist and a teacher. He begins his trek in a desolate tank town in Australia, where things start slowly, but he soon moves on--and ups the pace and tension--to London, the U.S. (East Coast and West) and finally Paris. The whole journey runs along like a thrill ride as you join Baxter in a series of adventures and misadventures with his assortment of bookstruck ne-er-do-wells and genial lowlifes.

There are only pluses to this book. Plenty of amusing incidents and anecdotes, lots of inside information about book collecting (appplicable to collecting in general) and to top it all off, superb writing. Baxter writes vivid, imaginative, entertaining prose. He is a delight to read.--Bill Marsano is an award-winning travel writer, an editor and a desultory book collector.

Rating:
Summary: Memoir and Peek at the World of Book Collecting
Review: I am a book collector and I enjoy my passion very much. Many people would say I'm obsessed but it only takes a book like this one to remind myself that I'm in the minor leagues.

Part memoir and part peek into the world of book collecting, Baxter tells of his youth in the wilds of Australia where, like many of us, he delved into the world of comic book and science fiction collecting. He matured along the way with an interest in Graham Greene before dumping that collection and moving onto other literary interests.

And he did not stay in the wilds of Australia forever. He travelled and made his way up in the world of film and publishing. Baxter has had the fortune as a film critic, writer and collector to meet a number of interesting people, from the writers he collected to eccentric bookmen like Martin Stone. The book has a definite British flavor, though Baxter has made some forays into the United States. Still, any book collector will see things he recognizes in Baxter's experiences and, in some cases, things we wished we could have experienced ourselves.

Let's face it, a person with a passion for book collecting will feel some jealousy when reading of some of Baxter's finds and encounters. Unfortunately, most of us do not have the means and/or opportunity to do some of the things Baxter has done. But this does not totally diminish the fun in seeing how he was able to come to have the experiences he had and it makes for a great read for anyone interested in books.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: I was terribly disappointed in this book. It's more of an autobiography of the author's life than it is about books and book collecting. Also, while I read more than the average person and I don't only read mainstream books, I felt like "Pound of Paper" was full of references to obscure authors.

I would recommend "Used and Rare" and other books by Larry and Nancy Goldstone if you really want to read about books and collecting.

Rating:
Summary: A Pound of Paper
Review: In his memoir A Pound of Paper, novelist and film biographer John Baxter meanders through the story of his life-long obsession with books and book collecting: from his precocious childhood in the Australian hinterland, where he devoured the science fiction magazines that were piled in a friend's garage, through years spent hunting Graham Greene first editions, to his Parisian penthouse in the present, in a building whose stairwell was once splattered with F. Scott Fitzgerald's vomit. Reading the book is akin to the experience of overhearing the eclectic chatter of a cocktail party. There is a lot of talk about people and places and books and films one has never heard of: my one complaint about Baxter's book is that he spends too much time mentioning publishers or book sellers that can mean nothing to the average reader (though book collectors will doubtless relish the detail). But interspersed among the forgettable bits are some delightful passages that any neophyte reader can enjoy--Baxter's description of the eccentricities of movie theaters in the small-town Australia of his youth, or of book browsing in Parisian librairies, an activity quite unlike shopping in English or American bookshops:

"The aristocratic attitude to bookselling meant that whole areas of Anglo-Saxon book-dealing expertise simply didn't apply. In visiting a librairie, you were paying a social call and admiring a collection. You were expected to walk appreciatively along the shelves, taking down books at random, admiring the bindings, rubbing a hand over the worn morocco, perhaps reading a few pages, nodding at a well-turned phrase, even smiling. Browsing, yes, but not as we know it.

There is, too, for those interested in flayed humans, a catalogue of anthropodermically-bound books, and also a story about a certain Bea Miles--"smelly, dumpy but charismatic,"-- that is worthy of Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair: she "roamed Sydney, wearing a hand-lettered cardboard sign offering to recite Shakespeare for a shilling a time." A Pound of Paper has many such anecdotes to offer readers.

In the end, one does not leave Baxter's book feeling that one knows the author particularly well--he does not offer readers an intimate entree into his life. But one does leave the cocktail party entertained, for the most part, by the chatter.

Rating:
Summary: A True Delight For Every Book Lover
Review: This is a engaging, entertaining memoir by a true book lover. The leisurely, slightly discursive way in which John Baxter unfolds his life story led me into imagining I had struck up a conversation with him in a musty second-hand book shop; and found his story to entertaining that I invited him across the street to a dark, smoky pub to continue the tale over several tall pints of lager.

Baxter grew up in Australia, and has since called London, Los Angeles and Paris home. He's been a broadcaster, novelist, biographer and film critic. The one constant thread in this far-ranging life has been his love of books. As a young adult, he became obsessed with science fiction. While living in London, he stumbled on a rare copy of a Graham Greene children's book, which served as the basis for a Greene collection he spent several years building.

In this book, he celebrates some of the most memorable people he's encountered along the way, including book runner Martin Stone (A book runner makes his living, if you can call it that, by buying and reselling books from flea markets, thrift stores and the like); and several literary greats, including Kingsley Amis, Ray Bradbury and Harry Harrison. He also explores collectors of erotica, the difference between Paris and London bookshops, skewers the ignorance of many eBay sellers, and has a grand good time through it all. The closing scene, where he brings all the books he owns together in one place for the first
time in his life, had a special resonance for me....it's something I dream of in my own life. For book lovers everywhere.--William C. Hall

Rating:
Summary: Discombobulation
Review: This was a terrible disappointment. More of a memoir than anything about book-collecting, it was so disjointed it is hard to say what it was about or what the point was. There seemed to be no context or fabric to the book.

There were, however, HUNDREDS of references to obscure authors, actors, film-writers, magazines and books. There were pages at a time where I was completely lost because I had no idea about whom the author was speaking, but he wrote as if the person was well-known to the reader.

Baxter leads the reader around the world from his beginnings in Australia, thence to Britain to the US and ending in France. Again, there is no context. He would flip from a reference to the obscure artist, to an anecdote about himself or some bookseller or collector and then perhaps mention how he had acquired a book.

If viewed as a book about collecting books, you will not learn much. If viewed as a memoir, there was little that was interesting about the author's life and there was precious little about his life other than acquisitions.

There were a very few nuggets about what makes a book valuable or diminishes its worth to a collector, but they were too few and far between.

If you could not tell by now, I can not see much reason to read this book. I think Mr. Baxter flattered himself to think that either he or his collection would be of general interest.

Rating:
Summary: Book lovers unite
Review: Though I do not believe in censorship, books like A POUND OF PAPER: CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK ADDICT need to be hidden from family members. Bibliophiles know the affinity that film biographer John Baxter shares with us. Though not chasing around the world like Mr. Baxter has, book lovers will comprehend the need to hit the obscure bookstore whether on a business trip or a vacation. Going to Europe includes visits to the neighborhood bookstores of Athens and Rome (Greece and Italy not Georgia) as key to the itinerary.

Book lovers can commiserate with Mr. Baxter as everyone thinks you're a nut whether one grows up in rural Australia or the urban Bronx. Mr. Baxter provides a bit of book history beyond just the printing press invention and gives insight into proofs and galleys, and limited editions. He also goes into depth of what havoc and destruction the Information Age via the Internet has had on bookstores including the global yard sale of eBay. Though he adds other personal non-book elements of his life, it is his love for the printed media that will hook readers like me whose house displays the destruction of several rain forests (it is hard to be an environmentalist in my abode). Clearly for book hoarders though film addicts might try a spin as Mr. Baxter is part of that community too.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Book lovers unite
Review: Though I do not believe in censorship, books like A POUND OF PAPER: CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK ADDICT need to be hidden from family members. Bibliophiles know the affinity that film biographer John Baxter shares with us. Though not chasing around the world like Mr. Baxter has, book lovers will comprehend the need to hit the obscure bookstore whether on a business trip or a vacation. Going to Europe includes visits to the neighborhood bookstores of Athens and Rome (Greece and Italy not Georgia) as key to the itinerary.

Book lovers can commiserate with Mr. Baxter as everyone thinks you're a nut whether one grows up in rural Australia or the urban Bronx. Mr. Baxter provides a bit of book history beyond just the printing press invention and gives insight into proofs and galleys, and limited editions. He also goes into depth of what havoc and destruction the Information Age via the Internet has had on bookstores including the global yard sale of eBay. Though he adds other personal non-book elements of his life, it is his love for the printed media that will hook readers like me whose house displays the destruction of several rain forests (it is hard to be an environmentalist in my abode). Clearly for book hoarders though film addicts might try a spin as Mr. Baxter is part of that community too.

Harriet Klausner