Books: Patience and Fortitude

“Patience and Fortitude”__ These two lions, carved out of Tennessee marble, have guarded the doors of the New York Public Library since 1921. Guarded what? The knowledge within. Some people feel that way about libraries__regarding them as the keepers of knowledge, the storehouse and record of human achievement. Well Nicholas Basbanes feels that way also. In his 2001 book, “Patience and Fortitude A Roving Chronicle Of Book People, Book Places and Book Culture,” Bisbanes chronicles the history of libraries, book dealers and book collectors and the obsession that drives them. Of course the booklover inevitably emerges as an odd bird. But any obsession creates a bit of oddity. Take for example a man who in 1939 sold bottles of his own blood to purchase a rare book on Native American lanaguages. Bibliophiles are like that, but it’s a “Gentle Madness” as Basbanes calls it in his first book by the same name. A book you may also want to check out. “Patience and Fortitude,” is a sequel of sorts to, “Gentle Madness.” It opens with a history of the great libraries of the past, such as Alexandria and Pergamum, and then moves forward to the active collections held at the Vatican, Wolfenbottel and the universities of Durham, Leiden and Oxford. Attention is also given to the new library at Alexandria, National Libraries of England and France, and unique collections of monasteries. From there the reader gets a look book dealers often painted by Basbanes as just as odd as the book lover. A dealer tells Basbanes, speaking of his bookshop, "I absolutely insist on keeping the same crummy look. Every time I make the place too neat, business goes down." But the thing that stands out about “Patience and Fortitude,” is the look at the great librarians of the past, brief as that look maybe. Yes hard as that is to believe librarians were once highly regarded. In Europe of the past the position was often a royal appointment, but that's another story. The book ends on a somewhat sad note with a conversation with librarians fretting over too many old books and no one who wants to read them. This is a book for those who glory in books. Highly recommended.