A few weeks ago Sean Manning emailed me about a new Da Capo released he edited, BOUND TO LAST: 30 Writers on Their Most Cherished Book. Like a lot of bloggers who have been around awhile I get emailed a lot about new books but Manning impressed me by pointing out that the book included an introduction by Ray Bradbury, which he knew I would find appealing for obvious reasons. I told him I'd give it a look and when it arrived that was all I planned to do. But if you are a book lover - and especially if you are a writer - then this is a book you will love from the start. I'm only about 45 pages in but I can't believe how well done it is.

BOUND TO LAST just became the book I'm getting for every writer on my list, hands down.

The premise is simple: it's not a blast against e-books but it is about how physical books do still matter. This is best exemplified early on by Nick Flynn who writes that certain books are perfectly fine in e-book. Grisham, he says, is fine that way. You read it and then you are ready to pass it along. A lot of books, he notes, end up headed to the landfill but others can never be sent that way. "It is harder to bury a living thing," he writes. And some books, as this collection points out, are clearly very much alive.

Bradbury's intro will be familiar to fans of his work. He writes about his Aunt Neva and how she brought so many wonderful things into his life including the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. It's wonderful and classic Bradbury all the way. Jim Shepherd writes about visiting a mysterious used bookstore, reminiscent of the last shot in Raiders of the Lost Ark, that gave him an incredible collection of hard covers. When he returned some time later it was, of course, shuttered and gone. But he sees those books and remembers that magical place all over again.

Francine Prose writes about the pain of discovering her copy of Andersen's Fairy Tales was missing and the wonder of finding the exact copy available for sale online - and immediately acquiring it. (The point was to find the exact same edition - nothing else would do.) Anthony Swofford writes about carrying The Stranger with him on tour in the Persian Gulf (an experience he used to write Jarhead). Here's some of what he has to say:

...my experience in that burning desert altered me, changed me as a writer and a man. Perhaps it even made me a writer; it certainly made me a different writer from the one I'd have become if I'd gone to university at eighteen or become a carpenter, another option at the time. That battered copy of the The Stranger that I carried around the desert was an integral part of my writer's education.

That battered copy he carried around is essential to him even now - it reminds him who he was before and during the war and who he has become since.

Danielle Trussoni has a treasured copy of Speak, Memory that she has taken with her on every move, reading it literally to death but still can not let go.

Joyce Maynard's essay surprised me the most so far. It's about The Bible and I thought, "oh man - of course..somebody always writes about The Bible." But it's not just The Bible in general, it's her father's Bible and why she doesn't have it and why he did have it and why she misses him so much and by the time she gets to the end you feel so badly for this poor woman who has only the memory of her father annotating his Bible and not the actual book itself.

No other Bible will do, that's for sure.

All of these lead to the essay I finished last night on Les Miserables by Louis Ferrante. This is how it starts:

In the early '90s I was indicted by the FBI, Secret Service, and Nassau County Prosecutor's Office, charged with heading my own crew in the Gambino Crime Family. After several years of court proceedings, I pled guilty. I'd serve my federal sentence first, followed by my state sentence.

Not what you expect is it? Ferrante served 8 and a half years and wrote a memoir of his years with mob. Prison is where he read his first book and where he left the mafia life behind to become a writer. Les Miserables came to him at a particularly hard time when he was in the Nassau County Jail that was, in his words, "a real shit hole". He lived with Victor Hugo, adored each and every word. After getting out of jail he came across an identical copy of the book he had read in prison and quickly "grabbed the book, and hurried to the register. At home, I placed it on my shelf, like a trophy."

I can understand that, and I'm sure how anyone can understand why an e-book version of Les Mis would never do for Ferrante.

I knew what I thought when I started reading BOUND TO LAST; that it would be a diversion, maybe have a few standouts, maybe make me feel nostalgic. I did not expect to be literally jolted, to be stunned by the quality of writing, by the originality, by the sheer boldness of what these writers have to say. Manning has done a killer job here of getting great things out of his contributors. As eager as I am to see what comes next though, I find myself slowing down, savoring each word much like Ferrante did with his Hugo. It has me reconsider so much and think very hard not only about reading but also about writing. It's wonderful, really and truly wonderful.

Consider it as highly recommended as it gets and expect to hear more and I continue reading.