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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
What a treasure this slim volume is! For all the bookworms and various and sundry monikers for those who love books and reading.
I don't know how to rate this. If it had ended before the casual dismissal of my favorite genre as "junk" I'd probably have given it 4 stars, because these essays capture much of what I feel and experience about books. The narrator seemed charming, personal, relatable. Then over the course of a sentence she turned into an arrogant snob who wrote off whole worlds of literature. Even after I got over feeling personally attacked by it, it still left a bad taste in my mouth.
This book is a nonfiction collection of essays written about books and reading. I don't typically read or enjoy nonfiction but this book had a lot of humorous parts and a lot of parts I read aloud to my husband. Plus its short. And it's about books, which I love. It did, however, make me question how well read I really am. She talks about books and authors I've never heard of. And a lot of the words shes uses are way over my head. But it has a lot of really funny and insightful parts. If you like books and reading, this is a fun book to read.
A book about books is always a good idea. This one is delightful.
A lovely read about reading and words and language. It was a perfect book to sip slowly, one chapter/vignette at a time - or slurp a few chapters while soaking in a nice bath. (perhaps I should make a shelf that says good for reading in bath) Loooking forward to reading the newer work in the same vein.
I especially loved the first chapter of this book, on "marrying libraries." Although that is something I don't have to worry about because my husband is not a reader. I have to admit, though, I cringed every time the author mentioned writing in the margins of books. To each his (his'er?) own, I suppose, but in my mind, someone who truly loves and respects books would never write in them.
Adored! Loved! Devoured!
This incredibly delightful little collection of short essays focusing on reading, books, and us insufferable literary types, became an instant favorite and I can't wait to re-read and re-read and re-read. An absolute delight where I was astonished that someone could put to words thoughts and feelings that I've had rattling around in my heart for my entire life.
This incredibly delightful little collection of short essays focusing on reading, books, and us insufferable literary types, became an instant favorite and I can't wait to re-read and re-read and re-read. An absolute delight where I was astonished that someone could put to words thoughts and feelings that I've had rattling around in my heart for my entire life.
Enjoyable set of essays; entertaining for any bibliophile. One essay is on Gladstone, Prime Minister of England four times in the 1800's & who wrote a small book, "On Books & the Housing of Them". From Gladstone: "What man who really loves his books, delegates to any other human being, as long as there is breath in his body, the office of inducting them into their homes?"
"A few months after he wrote that sentence, he had endowed a library in the village of Hawarden, moved twenty thousand of his own books there by wheelbarrow, and placed every one of them on the shelves himself."
A serious bibliophile indeed.
"A few months after he wrote that sentence, he had endowed a library in the village of Hawarden, moved twenty thousand of his own books there by wheelbarrow, and placed every one of them on the shelves himself."
A serious bibliophile indeed.
This is not a bad book. It is a bad book for me. I found the author and her family kind of insufferable, but the biggest thing was the essays were mostly in regard to classical literature and I just didn’t relate to most of her sentiments. It was disappointing for me.