Jonathan Lethem’s Alphabetical Absolutism: How Writers Keep Their Books

What do our libraries say about us? It’s a question the Book Bench has explored in detail in the past. The answer we came up with is: A lot. In a recent piece in the magazine, James Wood gave a more nuanced response. “Our libraries perhaps say nothing very particular about us at all,” he writes. “Each brick in the wall of a library is a borrowed brick: several thousand people, perhaps several hundred thousand, own books by F. E. Peters…. We tend to venerate libraries once we know whose they are, like admiring a famous philosopher’s eyes or a ballet dancer’s foot.” This principle guides Leah Price’s new volume, “Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books,” which presents photographs of the libraries of thirteen authors—including Wood and his wife, Claire Messud—alongside interviews about their collections, their most prized titles, and their reading habits. Below, a selection of images and text from the book.