a thought-provoking foreword

Speaking of reading academic books, I love to read foreword, acknowledgement, and postscript, more than the content itself. The first thing I would read is not the chapter titles nor the introduction/conclusion but, if available, the acknowledgement or the postscript. (The first thing I would "do" to a book is a bit different. Sometimes I would smell a book by flipping it through quickly to reveal its "soul". If you are with me, you know what I mean)

I just enjoy anything beyond the content. I say "beyond" because a good ones humanizes a book. If the content is hard, they are soft. They give personal touch to months of hard work. An acknowledgements pay tributes to not only supervisors, teachers, fellows, library staff (not limited to professional librarians but I always wonder if the circulation staff would be aware of it), institutions, funding bodies, family, friends, spouses, children, etc. but author's long and lonely, difficult but sometimes exciting journey to materialize all of them into a book.

A hearty ones blow life into a thick dull brick. They colour a book more than any sound argument in the content. The arguments are there to be confirmed or challenged. Take it or leave it. Acknowledgements and postscripts stand firm. If the content is soft, they are hard.

If you are lucky enough to read a personal/sensational ones, you can be sure that the author is a genuine person and the book is all too lucky in your hand.

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After a hearty b&b (beef & beans) dinner with my wife and wash-up, I withdrew to my book stool facing the window. I picked up a brick at the bottom of a pile of paperbacks and hardcover. A foreword took my heart.

It was a collection of essays to honour Anthony Hobson, an eminent bibliophile who inherited his father's, G. D. Hobson, a Sotheby's partner, pioneering achievement in the field of bibliophily.

In fact, to say the least, the content page interested me less than the foreword written by Frederick B. Adams, I assume, a close friend of Hobson.

The Bibliography of the volume does not include any sale catalogues, however essential, written by Hobson for Sotherby's for a simple reason that Hobson "regards them as professional work in the line of duty and not as personal writing." It rang me a bell.

It led me to think about my work. As as a university teacher/researcher, teaching and researching are my duties. How could I distinguish my academic writing from professional work or personal writing? I produce almost no personal writing beside this blog! The line is difficult to draw. I nevertheless recall a piece of professional work "in the line of duty" that I still hesitate to put it into my bibliography. Yet, I will record it for my annual report just now.

Furthermore, Adams reveals the secrets organising colloquiums: careful planning, diplomacy, patience, and conviviality. These are by no means secrets to anyone who has experience but it's just hard to achieve. I consider the second and the last are the two indispensable keys to success. Diplomacy helps smooth preparation and conviviality shows hospitality. These are what I have learned after some years of work.