Book Title:  The Library at Night

Author:  Alberto Manguel

Publishing Company:  Vintage Canada

Book Website: click here 

Year:  2007

# of Pages: 373

ISBN #:  978-0-676-97589-5

$22.95 

3 ½ Stars 

Reviewer:  Deborah Ground Buckner It is not surprising that an author whose work has demonstrated a love of books would also share his love of libraries.  Alberto Manguel, who cataloged some of the greatest fictional locations from literature in The Dictionary of Imaginary Places and shared the importance of books through the ages in A History of Reading now turns his thoughts to methods of storing these treasured books. 

“My books hold between their covers every story I've ever known and still remember, or have now forgotten, or may one day read; they fill the space around me with ancient and new voices.  No doubt these stories exist on the page equally during the day but, perhaps because of nighttime's acquaintance with phantom appearances and telltale dreams, they become more vividly present after the sun has set.”  Anyone who, on a lonely evening, has ventured to a bookshelf in search of a night's companion can relate to Manguel's words.  Just as a reader who, engaged in one book is suddenly spurred to recall a line from another and goes in search of it, Manguel lets his thoughts on storage and presentation of his own beloved volumes carry him to other stories of other libraries.  The result is one of those lovely books that can be read straight through and allow gleaning of a wealth of information or can be opened at a random page and share an interesting anecdote.  One can browse this book of libraries as if browsing a library of books. 

As a lover of books, Manguel reveals all his passionate feelings, including those harbored for the plaguing price stickers “that malignant booksellers attach to the backs. These evil white scabs rip off with difficulty, leaving leprous wounds and traces of slime to which adhere the dust and fluff of ages, making me wish for a special gummy hell to which the inventor of these stickers would be condemned.” 

With his own thoughts on libraries, Manguel also explores the importance to libraries in ancient societies, such as Alexandria and Egypt.  From early times, man has viewed a library as a means to immortality.  The preservation of books is the preservation of events, thoughts, ideas, and, therefore, a way to defeat death.

In discussing the storage of books, Manguel voices the problem faced by every private book owner and every public librarian:  “In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long. . . .Ultimately, the number of books always exceeds the space they are granted.”

Attempting to narrow a collection can be virtually impossible.  As French scholar Gabriel Naude wrote in Advice for Setting Up a Library in 1627:  “there exists no book, however bad or badly reviewed, that may not be sought after in some future time by a certain reader.” 

Manguel writes of the libraries that do not exist, as a result of banning and even burning of books.  In an age of technology, he compares electronic libraries with stacks and stacks of books, finding a need for the existence of both types. 

Libraries present not only a love of books, but also a memory of mankind, a means of preserving the stories, thoughts, ideas and events of an age for the knowledge and enjoyment of another.   

Manguel's research is extensive, as indicated by 367 reference notes.  His writing is beautiful and vivid, but I would have liked to have had the numerous anecdotes woven a bit more artfully.  There are times when the work seems interrupted by the next anecdote rather than having one naturally flow to the other.  But it is a book readers, librarians and historians will find enlightening.  It also provides the inspiration for a late night in one's own library, rearranging the beloved books to find the perfect order and, in so doing, becoming reacquainted with dear old friends.