Book Board Chat

Author Autograph Etiquette 101

Before Martin Amis’s recent move to the United States, I was sitting next to him at dinner. In the buildup to this dinner I had long discussions with myself about whether it was O.K. to bring along a book and get it signed. It was a blatantly uncool thing to do, but I realized that I cared more about getting a book signed than I did about what my host or any of the other people at dinner thought about it. The only real issue was how many books I could reasonably take.

At the end of the dinner I produced my books and Amis signed them. Naturally I was the only person at the dinner who had brought along books to be signed. After Amis left, several of the remaining guests said they wished they had brought copies for him to sign so I was in the odd position of being an object of both derision and envy. The situation was further complicated by an undertow of regret. Having brought six books, I might as well have brought the lot so that I could experience the glow of completion.

These satisfactions, quandaries and anxieties will be familiar to anyone who shares the signage habit. People have their own little quirks and preferences about what they want signed and how, though few sink as low as the guy — he invites writers to hurl inscribed abuse at him in his copies of their work. But maybe he speaks for all of us because it is a rather sniveling compulsion. I mean, what kind of hobby is it? Autograph hunting combined with biblio-­fetishism? (The books signed by Amis were all first editions.) Name-­dropping in the form of name-hoarding? A little of both, certainly, but I think there is something about the solitary, wholly internalized nature of reading that makes one crave an ex libris tattoo as external confirmation of the transient intimacy of reader and book. This urge then acquires an addictive momentum of its own.

Of course dealers depart from the signing table with their value enhanced, mint condition firsts and put them straight on eBay. Even so, the fact that most people prefer value diminishing personalized inscriptions suggests that profit is not a motive. Occasionally I abstractly calculate the potential cash value of my collection, but since I have no intention of selling any part of it, this is totally meaningless. Beyond this, I don’t think it has a larger significance. I’m aware that, as with all my little obsessions, it substitutes for the lack of a larger purpose. Getting books signed makes me happy even though, like many sources of happiness, it is often indistinguishable from torment.

The Complete Article

And I hope that none of you use this article as an excuse to invite bookleaves out for a pizza and then spring all of her books on her to sign (LOL)