In “Object Lesson,” a consideration of “Why we need physical books published in the New Republic, William Giraldi inevitably turns to Updike:

“There was little that escaped the Updikian caress, and he wrote more than once about the pleasures and peculiarities of book collecting. In an essay called “The Unread Book Route,” about A History of Japan to 1334, Updike wrote: ‘The physical presence of this book, so substantial, so fresh, the edges so trim, the type so tasty, reawakens in me, like a Proustian talisman, the emotions I experienced when, in my youth, I ordered it.’ Leave it to the unerringly sensual and curious Updike to a) refer to book type as ‘tasty,’ and b) think as a youth that he needed to know something about Japan prior to 1334.

“Updike’s point about the Proustian talisman is a crucial one for bibliophiles: Their collections are not only proof of their evolution but monuments to their past, fragrant and visual stimulators of recall.”