A bookish book...

 

My Live With Bob:  Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues by Pamela Paul

For twenty-eight years Paul has kept track of the books she's read in a notebook she named Bob. Those books track the different stages of her life from high school and college, to living abroad, different jobs, marriage, divorce, children. All of it. Books and reading helped shape her life; in turn, her life experiences influenced the books she chose to read. As a lifelong reader myself, I related.

I laughed when she wrote: "There was a shiftiness to kids who secreted themselves in a corner to read instead of what they should have been doing.... I did everything I could to read my way out of doing anything else. It was the one thing I was good at."

And I nodded my head in agreement when she said:  "...lending a book to an unreliable reader inevitably leads to regret. It is lovely to share books, but they need to come home. I have known people to maintain years-long grudges over unreturned books. Who can blame them?" (I admit, I still remember the name of the girl who borrowed my copy of Something Wicked This Way Comes in high school and never returned it; and I still haven't quite forgiven my uncle who lost one of the books he borrowed from me...mostly because he was so unapologetic about it.)

For the most part, I enjoyed this book. But then I do tend to like reading books about books and reading. Paul's a likable person, and her musings on reading made me smile. And I agreed with many of her sentiments, though not all of them. Some of the chapters were less interesting to me than others, but that's typical in any biography. And while this one won't make my favorites list at the end of the year, it's a solid 3-star read. Now I'm off to choose my next book. Because as Paul writes, "There (are) lots of books needing to be read."

Happy Reading!

 

A bookish gem...

The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan isn't really about a bookshop. It's mostly about Zoe, a single mom, and Hari, her four-year-old son, who hasn't started to speak yet. Escaping her dismal job in London, and her even more dismally expensive flat, Zoe heads to Scotland to be a nanny. Only once she's there she discovers that her three charges are the opposite of welcoming; their ramshackle estate isn't exactly comfortable or convenient; and Ramsey, their single father, is mostly absent. And Hari still isn't talking. Down but not defeated, Zoe presses on. After all, she can't exactly go back home. And soon everything around her starts to change for the better.

What I loved most about this book:

• It's set in beautiful Scotland.
• Nina and Lennox from The Bookshop on the Corner are both in it. (And Nina's pregnant!)
• Zoe is plucky, vulnerable, resilient, and witty; and her interactions with Shackleton, Mary and Patrick, the three hard-to-deal-with Urquart children, totally made me laugh.
• There's lots of talk about books and reading.
• Ramsey isn't your typical hunky hero, but in his own quiet and awkward way, he's hard to resist.
• It has a happy ending.

 

Happy Reading!

A bookish gem...

How good it is to be among people who love reading!

I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel is a love letter to reading. And I loved every word of it, from her thoughts on finding the right book (or letting the right book find you) to how to organize your bookshelves. ("You're a reader; your hobby is organizing your bookshelves.") But I have to say, her chapter on Bookworm Problems made me laugh out loud. Here are three of my favorite ones:

• You have reached your limit on library checkouts, but nine books are waiting for you on hold.
• Your To Be Read list holds 8,972 titles, and you want to read every one.
• Someone asks you to name your three favorite books, and you can narrow your list to only five. Or seven. Or seventeen.

I don't know about you, but I've experienced all of these bookish problems to one extent or another. (Thankfully, my To Read list is NOT in the thousands of titles...yet.) My current bookworm problem? Lack of sufficient bookshelf space!
Anyway, I'd Rather Be Reading is a delightful read...it's short, and humorous, and very relatable, and it'd make the perfect Christmas gift for any bookworm or bibliophile.

Happy Reading!

Bookish quotes...

I didn't love this book. Some parts were good. But I ended up skimming the rest.

Which is too bad, because I usually like Susan Hill. But even though I didn't end

up loving this particular book, I did love these four quotes from it:

"Cold room, warm bed, good book."

"I thought I had cleared out all the books I would ever need to lose five years ago, but books breed....As fast as I get one out of the back door, two new ones come in through the front."

"A book that cannot be returned to again and again, and still yield 

fresh entertainment and insights, is only half a book."

"Reading is magic. Books are magic. It starts when we are shown picture books and realise there is another world beyond the everyday one we know.  Once we can read ourselves, we live inside the magic. The only problem is that we have to emerge at the end of a book, and we don't want to leave and return to that dull domestic world we know.  The only solution to that problem, of course, is that there is always the next book, and the next and there is bonus magic if it is another in a series we already love, so we are plunging back into a magic other world but one we already know.  We feel a lift of the heart, a lurch of the stomach, when we find ourselves in it again."

If this book appeals to you, I'd suggest you read Susan Hill's Howard's End is on the Landing instead. It's also a memoir about books and reading, but of the two, I think it's the better read.

Happy Reading!

The Reading Promise

The 3,128-night reading marathon that my father and I call The Streak started on a train to Boston, when I was in third grade.

The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma is a charming memoir about a daughter and her father, the books they shared together over a nine year period, and the transformative power of reading. I love books--especially ones about books and reading--and I absolutely loved this one. At the end, there's a "Reading Promise" that the author hopes everyone will choose to make. Here's an excerpt from it:

I promise to read. I promise to read on my own, in print or on a screen, wherever books appear. I promise to visit fictional worlds and gain new perspectives--to keep an open mind about books, even when the cover is unappealing and the author is unfamiliar. I promise to laugh out loud (especially in public) when the chapter amuses me, and to sob uncontrollably on my bed for hours at a time when my favorite character dies. ... I promise to tell everyone I know how reading calms me down, riles me up, makes me think, or helps me get to sleep at night. I promise to read, and read to someone, as long as human thought is still valued and there are still words to be shared. I promise to be there for books, because I know they will always be there for me.

Isn't that a great promise to make?

Happy Reading!