Above all, I want to thank librarians and booksellers everywhere: They have made Book by Book possible. As usual, Marian Peck Dirda and our three sons, Christopher, Michael, and Nathaniel, provided reality checks whenever I tended to drift off too long into bookish revery. McDaniel College, through the good graces of President Joan Coley, Provost Thomas Falkner, and Professor LeRoy Lad Panek (former chair of the English Department), provided me with a refuge in which to finish the initial drafts of my manuscript. Patricia and Allen Ahearn, owners of Quill and Brush Books, then allowed me to hole up in their back bedroom while I revised my text. At Writers Representatives, my agents, Glen Hardey and Lynn Chu, aided by their associates Catharine Sprinkel and Farah Peterson, first encouraged, then enthusiastically supported this project. Had I not had the good fortune to land a job at the Washington Post Book World, I would almost certainly have never been able to read so much or so widely during the past twenty-five and more years.
I would like to thank everyone at Henry Holt who helped make Book by Book a reality: in particular, John Sterling, Sadie Stein, Patrick Clark, Devin Coats, Rita Quintas, and Annsley Rosner. Raquel Jaramillo designed a handsome antique look for the book, while Elvis Swift’s chapter ornaments are as ingenious as they are delightful. Most of all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my editor, Vanessa Mobley, who encouraged me to think hard about everything I wrote, brought to each of these pages her own keen intelligence and taste, and in every way helped make this a better book.
All these people deserve a good deal of the credit for whatever merit Book by Book may possess. I alone am responsible for its mistakes, lacunae, and oversights.