Lately I find myself spending more time re-visiting favorite old books than I do reading new stuff. By “old,” I mean books I acquired back in the seventies and early eighties. For example: Edward Hoagland’s Walking the Dead Diamond River (1973), Whitney Balliett’s Ecstasy at the Onion (1971), Janet Malcolm’s Diana & Nikon (1980), Sanford Schwartz’s The Art Presence (1982), John McPhee’s Pieces of the Frame (1975), M. F. K. Fisher’s As They Were (1982), Helen Vendler's Part of Nature, Part of Us (1980), John Updike's Picked-Up Pieces (1976). I love these books. I love everything about them – their dust jackets, their feel as physical objects, the wonderful writing they contain. If there were a fire, these are the books I’d try to save first.
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