Last month we brought Eli Gottlieb to ALA Midwinter and we were infinitely glad to have him- he was a fantastic speaker and signed hundreds of books during the conference. Along with Carrie Kania of Harper Perennial, our library marketing team was promoting the paperback edition of Eli's critically-lauded novel, Now You See Him.
Eli spoke at the AAP Breakfast with the Authors on Sunday January 25th, and here are a few choice quotes.
On film vs. books: "Through the miracle of the inner monologue, books can take readers inside our emotional lives in a way movies can’t. A book can telescope time, or like Proust, turn a kiss into a twenty page opera. For that reason, and no matter how big their budgets grow, films will never be able to show human relationships with the subtlety and nuanced depth of novels."
On his love of libraries: I’d be remiss if I didn’t say something about libraries. I was fortunate enough to be born to two bibliophiles. My mother was a frustrated writer and my father was a rare book collector, a papermaker and a bookbinder. Book worship in our house went well beyond the normal Jewish imperatives towards learning and study. I grew with my father’s vast scientific and literary library and it was there, rather than at school, that I received my realest education.
The full text for the speech is here, just click on the link: Download Eli library speech