| His Own Words ... On Books
“Books have so many stories…they go on and on, passing from one pair of hands to another. They leave an imprint on human minds, and humans leave an imprint on their pages.”
(from A Man’s Reach)
 "Books have always held a great attraction for me. They provide the best way to communicate in a lasting way, generation after generation. They are not impeded by changes in technology, in the way that other media can be. For example, there have been three or four major changes in recording technology in my lifetime. Victrola records cannot be played on a modern compact disc player. But books are always useful. If one can have and hold an original edition, the original form of a book, just as an author saw it and planned it, one can commune with that author. That makes a lasting impression.
Somehow, I liked the idea of having books for reference, for rereading and just the feeling you have about being around books. I think books have an ambience like a cathedral. They just do something for you. Back of me on the shelf here used to be the journal of Ralph Waldo Emerson. It just pleased me to know that any time I wanted to, I could have a morning visit with Ralph Waldo Emerson or Oliver Wendell Holmes, the great autocrat of the breakfast table. I just love the feeling of books, as well as the reading of them."
Somewhere quite early on, I became aware of an English historian named James Anthony Froude. He was the leading historian at one time during the nineteenth century, but he wrote many other books. He wrote one little set of books, 'Short Studies on Great Subjects,' that appealed to me. I haven't been much interested in fiction, with a few exceptions; Edith Wharton, Storm Jameson, Ellen Glasgow, Willa Cather are some exceptions. They all happen to be women. There are some good men novelists also. But, mainly, I read non-fiction, history, biography. Biographical studies have always interested me a great deal.
Then, I got into the history of books themselves, books about books, books on libraries, books on book collectors, books on printing, books on paper, books on ink, books on type, everything about a book. It's quite a field of collecting called "Books about Books." That became a major area. Books on Minnesota became a major area. I was pleased to come upon the journal of Colonel Snelling that he kept out at Fort Snelling. That was maybe one of the most unique books I ever had, because it was the only one of its kind. It was his own journal.
Every time there has been a new communication development, it was going to sweep everything else aside. I can remember, as a child, when radio came….Radio was going to eliminate everything. TV was going to eliminate everything. Movies were going to be dead. Books were going to be gone. The fact of the matter is that the expansion of communication just expands the use of communication. There are more books being published today than have ever been published…. There's just so much today that there isn't enough time for everything. But, books are going to be around because there's just something about holding a book and communing with the author, particularly if you get into a first edition. The feeling that you had the book in the very form, maybe the very copy, that the author himself handled, that's a thrilling thing, particularly if the author died a couple hundred years ago. Oh, I think books are here to stay."
-- From Andersen’s I Trust to be Believed (Lori Sturdevant, ed.), Nodin Press, 2004. Reproduced with permission.
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