Prize honors literature lovers
Elizabeth Palazzolo’s ’11 dorm room was a little crowded Tuesday afternoon. A group of adults filed inside, squeezing around the Saybrook College sophomore’s bookshelf.
But when the conversation turned to the shelf’s contents, Palazzolo said, everyone was more at ease. Her guests were there to judge her collection of books on classical civilization, history and literature — a contender for and ultimately an honorable mention recipient of Yale’s Adrian Van Sinderen Book Collecting Prize.
“I was thrilled that part of the process was actually looking at the books,” Palazzolo...
It seems kind of awkward this is done based on a physical or ownership model. That seems to bias this, does it not? I would love to buy some of the books I see when I'm perusing through old book stores, though I can only window-shop
Yay Jessica!
Amazing how leftists like #2 can turn an interesting, completely non-political article into an opportunity to make a political point that doesn't even apply. The article specifically said that the contest is not about acquiring expensive or unique books.
Congratulations to this year's winners; this is a great contest and more Yalies should participate.
#4: #2 isn't trying to make a political statement. It's just unfortunate that in our society, one who has the means to afford these books is more likely to buy them. They may say quality is better than quantity but both you and i know that's not true. Ask any of the winners how many books they have and how much they spent on the collection. Doubt someone on financial aid could do the same.
While I appreciate where you're coming from, #4, it does seem rather odd that the prize is monetary. Why not more books, instead? It's like paying someone because they have the best jewelry collection. With a lot of money and a little training, anyone can be a connoisseur. _Writing_ books, on the other hand... now there's the hard part truly deserving of a prize...
Even a paperback these days is nearly $20, so it's not like a poor student is in the best position to build up a collection of rare festshrifts and first-edition beat poetry. Especially in this economy...
On behalf of one of the winners who would like to remain anonymous given the nature of the comments, I would like to point out that this person is actually both on Yale financial aid and has outside scholarships, works two student jobs during the term, and has purchased the vast majority of his/her books second-hand. In fact, this person specifically discussed in her interview with the judges (and in the interview for this article), that he/she purchases books when he/she finds them for low prices in used bookstores because he/she does not have much money to invest on books. Even people who do not have a lot of extra money can make choices about where to spend the money they do have, and in this case the individual chooses to invest what money he/she makes on something that matters to him/her: purchasing books in a field of interest. The prize does not reward having tons of money to spend on expensive books, but investing time and effort to find books and choosing well among the books that one can afford. In fact, the literature provided by the prize competition specifically notes that a main consideration is care given to the selection of books, not the value or number of volumes. One can easily spend hundreds of dollars indiscriminately and still not have as well-developed a collection as someone who carefully searches out copies of interesting books at bargain prices.
Well said!
One of Yale's great collectors - Donald Gallup -was the former curator of the American Collection at the Beinecke. As an undergraduate at Yale he had absolutely no financial resources. He worked and scrimped for every penny, waiting tables in Yale's dining halls and husbanding his resources every way he could. In free time he haunted second hand bookstores. During the war, when he had leave, he haunted bookshops in England. Through these means he acquired a stunning collection. T.S. Eliot was amazed that Gallup had books and little magazines with poems and essays Eliot himself barely remembered he had written. The point here is that Gallup started with NO money; only a love for books. He made his priority buying books -as I am sure at least a few of those among the 30 young book collectors have done. (No ipod, a book instead.) The prize does not reward value or quantity, but thoughtful collecting - the kind Gallup did. His collection, when he started it, was worth nothing., It became valuable over time, and through the thoughtfulness of his own collecting. Has #2 made book buying the kind of priority Gallup did when he haunted bookshops as a penurious undergraduate?
Kurdish poetry is so exciting!