NONFICTION - Dec. 13, 1992

THE SMITHSONIAN BOOK OF BOOKS by Michael Olmert (Smithsonian Books: $45; 320 pp.) The habit of reading may wax and wane, but books are survival experts. They can hibernate for decades, even centuries, yet spring to life again instantly when opened, conveying to us, in a uniquely intimate way, the dreams and thoughts of other times, other cultures, other minds. To lose oneself in a book is really the privilege of finding oneself in another world. Michael Olmert’s “The Smithsonian Book of Books” is a fitting testament to the richness and longevity of book culture. Clearly a labor of love by all concerned, it’s a lively, up-to-date and stunningly illustrated Grand Tour, highlighting the multiple guises of the ineffable thing we seek when we haunt bookstores, burrow in libraries or convene in the pages of a book review. Olmert’s text is the best sort of essay: vivid, anecdotal, intelligently digressive, inquisitive, informative and entertaining. He includes an amazing range of material. There are chapters covering the first written records on tablets and scrolls, like the above passage from the “Egyptian Book of the Dead”; the monastic trade in illuminated manuscripts; the textual histories of the various religious traditions; medieval record-keeping and account books; the Renaissance explosion of printed books and the first master printers; the history and practice of typography, printing and binding; and much more. The beautifully printed illustrations form what amounts to a second volume running alongside the first. These, with their meticulous captions, are not simply keyed to the prose in a textbookish way. By living an independent life, they interact with the text and amplify it enormously. In addition to a wealth of examples from throughout the history of bookmaking and printing, they provide a fascinating survey of the prolific iconography of the book in visual representation. Mallarme wrote, “Everything in the world exists to end up in a book,” and after reading this one we feel that everything has. Certainly the world of books is contained here so attractively that at the end we’re likely to echo the sadness of the medieval scribe who penned at the end of a manuscript, “Goodbye, little book.” But of course we don’t have to say goodbye--that’s what books are all about.