Phantoms on the Bookshelves by Jacques Bonnet

A not very informative rattling off of titles and authors

If you are an avid reader who seeks out and collects books, or at least collects the experience of reading them, then you may find yourself seeking out books about books. One prominent subgenre within that sphere is the book collector’s memoir, of which there are many. Phantoms on the Bookshelves, originally published in 2008, is one such book collector’s memoir written by French bibliophile Jacques Bonnet. Memoirs of this type are usually written by collectors of rare and antiquarian volumes who spend a lot of money acquiring volumes to establish a library specializing in a particular subject, time period, genre, or author. Bonnet, on the other hand, considers himself a general reader and a general collector. The only requirement for a book to be added to his collection is that he might want to look at it someday. His all-encompassing love for books has resulted in a personal library of 20,000 volumes that he stores in his home. In Phantoms on the Bookshelves, Bonnet tells the reader what it’s like to own so many books, where they all come from, how he organizes his shelves, and other matters of interest to fellow bibliophiles.

Most of the book’s text consists of Bonnet bragging about his book collection, which would be fine—that’s common for these book collector memoirs—if his bragging would only teach us something about the books themselves. Instead of selecting some of his prized possessions and telling us what’s interesting about them, Bonnet just rattles off a rapid-fire stream of titles and authors. What he tells you about the books in his collection isn’t even substantial enough to be called trivia. In the back of this book is a bibliography of all the books Bonnet mentions in Phantoms on the Bookshelves. You might as well just read that, because it’s more informative than Bonnet’s prose. The most educational chapter is the book’s last, in which he discusses other people’s libraries, library fires, and book burnings.

Also typical of this genre, Bonnet talks a lot about how great reading is. As someone who loves to read, the last thing I want to read about is the pleasure of reading. Tell me something I don’t know. The text of Phantoms of the Bookshelves is sprinkled with many quotes about books and reading. If you wanted that, you could buy entire books filled with such quotes. Bonnet also hauls out the overused truism about how the internet is a useful tool, but nothing compares to the smell and feel of an actual printed book. Anyone who is enough of a bibliophile to want to read about someone else’s book collection will find such discussions generic and elementary.

What I like about Bonnet’s memoir is that you can tell he’s a reader. He buys books for their content, not for their publication history, elaborate bindings, or monetary value. In fact, he confesses that he freely writes in his books, thus depreciating their resale value. As a general reader and collector myself (though nowhere near Bonnet’s 20,000 volumes), I enjoyed his unapologetic pride in reading whatever he wants and purchasing hundreds of books he’ll probably never read, just because he likes living with them. As I read Phantoms on the Bookshelves, I felt an affinity for him as a fellow book lover, but I found myself constantly wishing that what he was telling me could be less rambling and more educational.
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