Notes on the Nature of Books
Essay about the value of books: more relevant than ever.
What is it about books?
Op-Ed contribution Sacramento Bee, May 2013
Books contain the kinetic power of possibilities. Gathered on shelves, multiplied in old stores and stacked in libraries, unseen spirit emanates from each. Wisdom and knowledge contained within a room full of books could mysteriously seep into me. Standing quietly at a wall of books, one chooses me, as if by destiny or perhaps by chance. To browse is to be receptive to surprise and opportunity.
Richard Press has spent most of his 80 years collecting and selling books, not an accumulation of just any books, but only those he loves. Rare books, books by and about artists; sublime. His work is the art of books. He is a librarian and a scholar who, he says, lives a “life of the mind.”
Surrounded by books at his store in midtown Sacramento, his joy is matching a book with a collector. Sunlight spills through Venetian blinds casting diagonal patterns across rows of vertical spines. In a room filled with promise, color and texture, including jelly beans and ubiquitous cat. The tactile feel of pages, the smell of ink on paper, meticulous binding, typography, design, illustrations are artful elements that enrich my experience of the content within. An afternoon here is bliss.
Gary Kurutz, curator emeritus, presides over the California State Library rare books and collections that the state has been acquiring since the 1850s. Through locked doors, past stacks of plain boxes, another locked door opens into a climate-controlled room -- a vault within a vault.
Ornate book covers of wood and odd materials protect hand-painted pages in gold leaf on pigskin. Some books are huge and heavy, some inconceivably tiny. A California publisher has created an immense and artistic edition of “Moby Dick.” Gary opens a folio to a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible, 1455. These books, he says, are about the joy of “how a book meets the eye.”
Collectors from all over the world meet at the Antiquarian Book Fair in San Francisco. Long isles of glass showcase rare books, some more than 500 years old, others from more recent times, all a reflection of our history and our culture.
Over hundreds of years, rare books have been safeguarded by owners who, I imagine, have had an emotional connection to author, content and the book itself. They were objects worth keeping. I wondered whose hands had touched the first German edition of Euclid’s “Elements,” 1555, now available for $30,000. Who would buy the first French edition of the United States Constitution, 1783?
The custodians today are a distinguished but aging crowd. Who would next conserve these objects of knowledge, history and art, and symbols of our cultural heritage -- from Thomas Payne to Picasso to Raggedy Anne -- for future generations? Libraries and younger collectors must continue the task.
For me, nothing replaces the kinetic energy of a book as an artistic adventure, the possibilities of provocation, inspiration and illumination.
Update July 2025
Sadly, Richard Press has since passed. He and I used to sit in his store an ponder what he was going to do with his collection, who would steward it, love it, and carry on relationships with his collectors, old and new. Shame on me for not yet visiting the fabulous new store Amatoria Fine Art Books and the owner, Miranda Culp, but I did just call her. She’s quite a dynamo and I can’t wait to visit her.
Gary Kurutz has retired and moved with his wife to the San Diego area, enjoying his first grandchild. I miss having lunch with him, his passion for California history, photography, and my favorite, Jack London. It’s a loss for the California State Library Collections, but the books are still there. It’s more of a scholar’s library that requires registration, but anyone can visit, and should.
Finally, as a kid who was free to read anything in my parent’s extensive library, I ardently support inquisitive minds. I resist censorship and any person who even hints that control is necessary to “protect us,” whoever us might be.
Lovely. 😍