What To Read and Why

Prose, Francine. What To Read and Why. New York: HarperCollins 2018. Print

First Sentences:

Reading is among the most private, the most solitary things that we can do.

A book is a kind of refuge to which we can go for the assurance that, as long as we are reading, we can leave the worries and cares of our everyday lives behind us and enter, however briefly, another reality, populated by other lives, a world distant in time and place from our own, or else reflective of the present moment in ways that may help us see that moment more clearly.

Description:

The books I most eagerly and thoroughly enjoy are those that tell me about other books. Whether through an author's personal reading preferences like Book Lust by Nancy Pearl or Joe Queenen's One For the Books, or by recounting personal adventures with books like The Shelf (reading an entire shelf of library books) by Phyllis Rose or The Know-It-All (reading the entire encyclopedia) by A.J. Jacobs, anything that describes and thereby promotes great, interesting books is always my first choice.

What To Read and Why by Francine Prose ably fills the bill for me. She clearly understands the double joy of reading: the solitary time in the author's world and then the sharing of the book's ideas with others. And she suggests that "You've got to read this" are the words that should open every positive book review. She feels the best reviews of recommended books really are telling readers to "Drop everything. Start reading. Now."

Reading and writing are solitary activities, and yet there is a social component that comes into play when we tell someone else about what we have read. An additional pleasure of reading is that you can urge and sometimes even persuade people you know and care about, and even people you don't know, to read the book you've just finished and admired -- and that you think they would like, too. 

In What to Read, each of its thirty-three chapters covers one highly recommended book and author. They range from the more recognized Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and George Eliot's Middlemarch to the lesser-know (at least to me) Roberto Bolano's 2666 and Mark Strand's Mr. and Mrs. Baby. Along the way author Prose covers the lives (briefly) and books by Austen, Alcott, Munro, and Knausgaard, as well as Charles Baxter, Deborah Levy, and Mohsin Hamid, all of whom I was to varying degrees unfamiliar with.

Prose even includes a couple of chapters on related topics such as "On Clarity," "What Makes a Short Story?",  and "On the Erotic and Pornographic." Got your interest yet? Surely there is something to whet anyone's reading appetite in What To Read and Why. 

Here's a writer who clearly loves to read and enthusiastically share her gems will all of us. Now, a few tidbits to get you excited about her recommendations:

• [on "The Collected Stories" of Mavis Gallant]: I feel  kind of messianic zeal, which I share with other writers and readers, to make sure that Gallant's work continues to be read, admired -- and loved....She builds her fictions with moments and incidents so revealing and resonant that another writer might have made each one a separate story....Her fiction has the originality and profundity, the clarity, the breadth of vision, wit, the mystery, the ability to make us feel that a work has found its ideal form, that no one word could be changed, all of which re recognize as being among the great wonders of art.

• [on Patrick Hamilton]: With their intense, and intensely mixed, sympathies for the men and women who haunted the pubs and walked the streets of London's tawdrier districts just before, during, and after World War II, Patrick Hamilton's novels are dark tunnels of misery, loneliness, deceit, and sexual obsession, illuminated by scenes so funny that it takes a while to register the sheer awfulness of what we have just red.

• [on Andrea Canobbio]: Canobbio...avoids the obvious pitfalls, largely as a result of his acuity and inventiveness, of the specificity and density of his detail, the elegance of his style, and the depth of his psychological insight.

• [on Elizabeth Taylor (the author, not the actress)]: The best of her fiction is extremely funny, incisive, sympathetic, and beautifully written, but it can also make us squirm with uneasy recognition and tell us more than we might choose to hear about ourselves and our neighbors. Awful things happen in those narratives, not in the sense of violence and gore but of characters realizing awful truths about the lives in which they are hopelessly mired.

• [on Jane Austen]: No other novelist combined such a subtle, delicate moral sensibility with such a firm, no-nonsense grasp of the most material realities -- of the fact that money determines one's opportunity to live in the tranquil and gracious style to which one is (or would like to be) accustomed.

• [on Stanley Elkin]: Stanley was not only a maximalist of language, but also one of truth....That was one of the most astonishing and special qualities of his work: that piling on more and more -- more metaphors, more world, more sentences, more humor, more energy -- as a way of delving into, bringing to light, and forcing us to look directly into the heart of the simultaneously dark and scintillating mystery of what makes us human. 

Well, you get the idea. Francine Prose is a gifted writer herself, willing to read widely, analyze the importance of great writing, and share her loves with us. No one could pick up What To Read and Why without finding something unexpected and alluring, an author, title or review, that will make them immediately go into a bookstore, library, or online to obtain a copy of this new treasure. Highly recommended. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Pearl, Nancy. Book Lust.   

Absolutely the best, most compelling, delightful reviews of hundreds of recommended titles from the head librarian of the Seattle Public Library. Irresistible, and best of all Pearl has several other Book Lust titles available for travel, teens, etc. (previously reviewed here)

The Bookshop of Yesterdays

Meyerson, Amy. The Bookshop of Yesterdays. New York: Park Row 2018. Print

First Sentences:

The last time I saw my uncle, he bought me a dog

A golden retriever puppy with sad eyes and a heart-shaped note. I didn't have her long enough to give her a name. One moment she was running around my living room with the promise of many adventures together and the next she was gone.

It was the same way with Uncle Billy.

Description:

What's not to like about a story about books, a bookstore, and a mystery complete with clues hidden by a dead relative leading to who knows what? In Amy Meyerson's debut novel The Bookshop of Yesterdays, she gives us lucky readers all three in a clever, mixture, full of likable characters trying to find some semblance of order to everything. Throw in some complex relationships between family members and loves and you have a page-turning read good for pleasantly whiling away several hours immersed in a story that is hard to abandon.

Miranda, a book-lover who as a child, delighted in spending time in her Uncle Billy's bookstore, Prospero Books. He used to hide scavenger-hunt clues throughout the books in the store for Miranda to follow to some exotic treasure brought back by Billy from his world travels. When Billy dies and leave Prospero Books to Miranda, she plans a short visit to Los Angeles to check in on the bookshop's current condition. Soon, despite having little knowledge of running a business, Miranda finds herself immersed in the struggle to keep the bookstore afloat, postponing again and again the return to her home in the east. This requires juggling a relationship with her boyfriend on the other coast who wonders when she will return to their life ... if ever

But she discovers Billy has left a variety of literary clues again that lead her to information regarding his mysterious life, his travels, the bookstore, and the falling-out he had years ago with his sister (Miranda's mother) that lead to them not speaking or having contact for years. There is a family mystery that can only be unraveled through solving these newly-discovered literary clues. An understanding of Shakespeare's The Tempest is a particular key for Miranda who, of course, was named after the play's principle character.

It's an interesting mystery full of quirky characters who busily pursue a variety of avenues  wherever they might lead, but also keep closely guarded their own pathways that affect Miranda's life, her family, and the bookshop itself.

If nothing else, read Bookshop of Yesterdays for its challenging literary references that lead readers on a wild chase through the world of great books and authors. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Dunning, John. Booked to Die.   

Cliff Janeway, former cop and avid collector of rare books, opens a bookstore and finds himself involved in a murder case. As he begins to understand the world of quality and uniqueness of rare books, he also is drawn into the murder of a book scout who had provided Janeway with books. Wonderful to read descriptions of rare books, their marketability, and the trials of opening a bookstore while following the investigation in the crime. Highly recommended (previously reviewed here)

Special Post - The 30-Book Library

Robinson, Chris. "If I Could Only Have 30 Books" Medium, January 17, 2019. medium.com/@CRMusicWriter/if-i-could-only-have-30-books-6ec859b8ada4. May 10, 2019.

First Sentences:

[Marie] Kondo suggests that “ideally,” people should only keep 30 books. For me and a whole lot of people I know, that goes against every fiber in our being. 

Description:

The other day I read the interesting article If I Could Only Have 30 Books by Chris Robinson about reducing "one's library to only 30 books." Author Robinson was commenting on the current hype from Marie Condo to cut down and simplify one's possessions. Looking at his precious bookshelves, Robinson wondered what if, just maybe, he had to weed his own collection down to a handful of titles. What thirty titles would he hold onto? 

These keepers would be books that one could (and would) re-read many times with pleasure. They are titles that summarize who you are, how your mind works, and what you find valuable. This collection would be the very definition of who you are.

It got me to thinking about my own collection and which ones I judge would be the most indispensable of books. Here are my thirty titles, with six alternatives in case ... well, just because I couldn't really leave them off. Believe me, it was really tough to whittle down my collection to its essentials.  At least now, when people ask for recommendations, I can give them a list of my own "Best of the Best."

Go ahead, try it for yourself. Then add your favorite thirty to the Comments section at the bottom of this screen. I look forward to seeing your own must-have collections.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Thirty Essential  Books - The First Sentence Reader

About Books

Book Lust - Nancy Pearl 

One for the Books - Joe Queenan

Fiction

Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold 

The Great American Novel - Philip Roth 

I Am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes 

Moment in Peking  - Lin Yutang 

Q & A - Vikas Swarup 

To Serve Them All My Days - R.F. Delderfield

Humor

Food: A Love Story - Jim Gaffigan 

Never Cry Wolf - Farley Mowat 

The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion 

Wodehouse on Golf - P.G. Wodehouse

Non-Fiction

The New Ocean - William E. Burrows 

The Stars: A New Way to See Them - H.A. Rey 

Stone by Stone - Robert Thorson

Personal Histories

We Took To the Woods - Louise Dickenson Rich 

The Piano Shop on the Left Bank - Thad Carhart

Philosophy

The First and Last Freedom - Jiddu Krishnamurti 

The Importance of Living  - Lin Yutang 

Manners from Heaven - Quentin Crisp

Reference

Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare - Isaac Asimov 

The Norton Anthology of Poetry - Margaret Ferguson (ed) 

The Norton Shakespeare (complete works) - Steven Greenblatt (ed) 

Webster's New World Dictionary and Thesaurus - Editors of New World Dictionaries

Science Fiction / Fantasy

The Collected Short Stories of Arthur C. Clarke - Arthur C. Clarke 

Enders Shadow - Orson Scott Card 

The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien 

Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien 

The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury 

Seveneves - Neal Stephenson

**Extras** (too good to leave off any list)

Enders Game - Orson Scott Card 

A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles 

The Martian - Andy Weir 

Moondust - Andrew Smith 

Soul of an Octopus - Sy Montgomery 

Three-Year Swim Club - Julie Checkoway

Lost Gutenberg

Davis, Margaret Leslie. Lost Gutenberg: The Astonishing Story of One Book's Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey. New York: TarcherPerigee 2019. Print

First Sentences:

A wooden box containing one of the most valuable books in the world arrives in Los Angeles on October 14, 1950, with little more fanfare -- or security -- than a Sears catalog.

Code-named "the commode," it was flown from London via regular parcel post, and while it is being delivered locally by Tice and Lynce, a high-end customs broker and shipping company, its agents have no idea what they are carrying and take no special precautions. 

Description:

I suppose if you have no interest in the historic creation of the first book published with movable type, the Gutenberg Bible, there is no need to read any further in this review. For me, however, Margaret Leslie Davis' Lost Gutenberg: The Astonishing Story of One Book's Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey, was a tremendously interesting history of a one specific Gutenberg Bible, its fabulously rich owners, and the quirks found inside this masterpieces of design, paper, binding, lettering, and illustration.

Printed around 1465, the Gutenberg Bible represented the first printing of a major book using metal movable type. Movable type had been used in China in the eleventh century, "but proved unwieldy, given the written language's thousands of distinct ideograms." Gutenberg developed the process of pouring liquid tin and lead into a mold to reproduce exact duplicates of each letter that could be arranged and re-arranged for printing, and even melted down later to create new letters. He created new tools necessary to actually print a book: frames to hold the type in place; presses that insure even pressure to push the paper down on the type on each page; and smear-proof, long-lasting ink. 

Gutenberg's inventions created a system that could print any number of books relatively quickly and cheaply, especially when compared to the alternative - hand-lettering each page. Before Gutenberg, a Bible might take two years to produce. With the constant demand for Bibles from monasteries, convents, and churches, Gutenberg made the business choice for his first movable type project to be the printing of the multi-volume,1,200-page Bible, "using 270 different characters -- punctuation as well as upper- and lowercase letters and letter combinations." 

Lost Gutenberg follows the life on one particular Bible, nicknamed "Number 45," and its owners throughout history. Lost Gutenberg also traces the huge fortunes of its world's ultra-rich owners who purchased, exhibited, or merely relegated Number 45 to massive shelves of a personal library, forgotten as just another expensive possession. Then there are the sadder stories of lost fortunes and the breaking up of world-class rare book collections for the owners of Number 45. 

Here are just a few of the facts I learned:

• Gutenberg Bibles still have bookplates from various owners pasted inside their front covers. (Seems to me like stamping "Property of.." on the Mona Lisa);
• Paper for printing was first moistened so it would absorb the ink better;
• There are 6-10 tiny holes in each page. Paper was "folded and pierced around the edges with a needle, providing guides so that the print would be impressed at exactly the same place on the front -- and back-- of each page";
• Even though the print lined up exactly on each side of the page, nineteen pages have one or two more lines than the standard 42 lines of text; 
• Some versions of the Bible had strips of velum extending beyond the pages to be used as thumb markers to index and allow faster access to specific sections.

Author Davis describes how, in 1980, new technology of lasers was used to study the composition of ink in Number 45. These lasers sent a data-gathering beam 1/10 the size of a period to help researchers understand how the 500-year-old ink still looked fresh. Researchers also found variations of ink between pages, demonstrating that printing was done on separate presses for different pages. Gutenberg had created the first assembly line. 

And today? At a 2015 auction, eight leaves (sixteen pages) from a Gutenberg sold for $970,000. Therefore "...each leaf of the Gutenberg Bible could be valued now at an extraordinary $121,250...it is conceivable that a two-volume Gutenberg Bible consisting of 643 leaves (1,286 single pages) might be priced at almost $80 million."

I could go on with more details about this particular Gutenberg Bible, but instead urge interested readers to grab onto The Lost Gutenberg to better immerse themselves in the history about this fascinating volume, "the world's most important book," its current fate and current fates other existing Gutenberg Bibles. 

The first mass-produced printed books, after all, are unlike any other thing in the world. Little else that we have produced is so rich with story, with lifelines that flow through one object -- and bind us together in the pages of human existence. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Mays, Andrea. The Millionaire and the Bard.   

This documents life of Henry Folger and his obsession with and quest to possess all existing copies of Shakespeare's original First Folios. Highly recommended (previously reviewed here)

The Year of Reading Dangerously

Miller, Andy. The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life. New York: Harper. 2014. Print.

First Sentences:

My life is nothing special. It is every bit as dreary as yours.

Description:

I just love books about books. That's just all there is too it. And what's not to like? Such books contain lists of recommended books, commentary by a clever reader, and back stories behind choices, disappointments, and treasures. Humor writer Andy Miller in his The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life delivers on all levels.

He documents the year he decided to read fifty books, "some of the greatest and most famous books in the world, and two by Dan Brown." These are books he had avoided throughout his life, not necessarily the best books ever written. His list is whimsical, ranging from Middlemarch to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, from On The Road to I Capture the Castle.

For each book, Miller writes a story. A ranging, funny, serious stream of consciousness evaluation of what the book has brought to his life. His comments meander into movies, songs, personal letters to authors, libraries, and his own life.

Just having access to the list of his books he read and the bonus list of the books that influenced him in these choices (included conveniently in the Appendices), made the book a valuable treasure map for me. 

Eclectic, fun, and insightful commentary on every page. It introduced me to many books I'd never even heard of and provided new interpretations over the ones I actually had read. Highly recommended for any book-lover seeking new titles and anyone else who appreciates cleverness in writing style and topics. 

Happy reading. 


Fred

Other book recommendations
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Walton, Jo. What Makes This Book So Great? Rereading the Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy

Over 130 essays on older, sometimes fogotten or overlooked science fiction and fantasy books. Walton writes with a passion and intellect for this genre, so uncovers many titles that sound tempting to plunge into yourself. (Previously reviewed here).

Queenan, Joe. One for the Books:

A voracious reader who sometimes is reading 15 books at the same time. His reviews are insightful, his titles pursued extensive, and his stories about reading, people, and books are wonderful. A must read for anyone who loves books. (Previously reviewed here)

Special Post - When to Put a Book Aside

Ragsdale, Melissa.14 Signs to Take a Break from the Book You're Currently Reading. Bustle [web site] https://www.bustle.com/p/14-signs-to-take-a-break-from-the-book-youre-currently-reading-11933221. October 26, 2018.

First Sentences:

Maybe this is heresy for me to say, but putting down a book can actually be a good thing. 

In my opinion, it's totally OK to not finish books: Press pause, and come back to it another time — or don't come back to it at all! Either way, setting that book down for a while might be just what you need to feel reinvigorate your love of reading.

Description:

Every once in awhile we need to remind ourselves that is perfectly fine to put down a book we are not enjoying. Time is too precious and there are too many other tempting books to waste even a single reading session struggling through a book that is a total slog. 

Melissa Ragsdale, writing for the Bustle web site, offers fourteen signs to help you decide whether or not to continue with a book. Read and grow, Grasshopper: 

• It feels like work to open it up

• There's another book you want to read so much more

• When people ask you about it, you only talk about the things you don't like

• You've been reading it for ages and haven't made very much progress

• You keep falling asleep while reading it

• You've stopped carrying it around with you

• You're only reading it because you want to tell other people you've read it

• You're putting pressure on yourself to finish it

• You're not curious about what's going to happen next

• You keep making excuses for not reading it

• You don't ever want to talk about it

• You feel like you've read a million other books like it

• Whenever you read it, you keep having to start over again because you're not taking anything in

• The thought of putting it down feels like a relief

I couldn't agree with her more.

Happy reading (and NOT reading, too) 

Fred

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The Uncommon Reader

Bennett, Alan. The Uncommon Reader. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2007. Print.

First Sentences:

At Windsor it was the evening of the state banquet and as the president of France took his place beside Her Majesty, the royal family formed up behind and the procession slowly moved off and through into the Waterloo Chamber.

"Now that I have you to myself," said the Queen, smiling to left and right as they glided through the glittering throng, "I've been longing to ask you about the writer Jean Genet."

Description:

Here's a short, quick read with a very intriguing premise. What if the Queen of England, through a series of incidents, became an avid reader? What if during any boring formal ceremony and dinner, she stopped asking innocuous questions to honorees and instead quizzed people on what they were reading and offered them tidbits about authors? What if, during frequent official royal carriage rides, she was waving with one hand while reading a book in her lap out of sight from people lining the streets?  

She'd got quite good at reading and waving, the trick being to keep the book below the level of the window and to keep focused on it and not on the crowds.

Author Alan Bennett has created such a royal book-lover in his delightfully-imagined The Uncommon Reader. When the Queen chases after her runaway pet dogs one evening, she stumbles upon a previously unnoticed book truck parked outside the palace kitchen. Curiosity takes her and she enters, spies a book by an author she once met, and borrows her first book. She had never been a reader, nor had any other hobbies, before because:

Hobbies involved preferences and preferences have to be avoided; preferences excluded people.

One book leads to another and soon the Queen in deeply engrossed in discovering and reading more and more books. Since most of her responsibilities consist of showing up all over the country to attend openings, oversee launchings, and present medals, she is offered many hours to read while traveling in cars and trains..

Unfortunately, her court members feel she is now not giving her full attention to her more mundane duties or to the staff around her, so they continually scheme to rid her life of books they have neither read nor have patience to listen to her talk about. Even her dogs chew up dropped books that take the Queen away from chasing them around the palace.

A delightful scenario of a monarch happily reading while managing a country at the same time. Really a fun read. On a related note, author Alan Bennett was the author of The Lady in the Van (also a Maggie Smith movie), and one of the co-founders, along with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, of the wildly popular, satirical review, Beyond The Fringe.

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference....books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included....books did not defer...Here in these pages and between these covers she could go unrecognized.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Queenan, Joe. One for the Books  

Tremendously interesting memoir of a man who has read thousands of books, including 15 at a time, along with clever, insightful, often cutting reviews. Great recommendations for all types of readers. (previously reviewed here)

Dear Fahrenheit 451

Spence, Annie. Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks. New York: Flatiron 2018. Print.

First Sentences:

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Dear Fahrenheit 451. Shall we be --- wait, I know you guys! Do you remember me?

I'm your public librarian! I walked you over to the Murakami that time. I helped you get the DVD about exploring New Zealand and you came back and told me about how wonderful your trip was and we both got tears in our eyes. Remember when you said you paid my salary and mumbled "bitch" under your breath when I wouldn't do your kid's research paper for them? I'm that bitch!

Description:

When I read books, I tear off bits of my paper bookmark and place them in pages to indicate sections that have important (to me) phrases, clever thoughts, and references to books I'd like to read. Usually that means about 2-6 markers for my favorite books.

In Annie Spence's Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks, I had twenty-seven pages marked. I counted because I couldn't believe it. I wanted to remember so many books to record into my "To be read" notebook, as well as all Spence's clever, snarky phrases I wanted re-use on someone else and pass them off as my own. 

Spence, a public librarian, writes letters to her books. Seriously. She tells individual books why each has: A) influenced her life; B) infuriated/disappointed her; C) had an impact on a library user; D) unfortunately will be weeded out of the collection and relegated to the book sale table.

Sound kooky to you? Well, it's not. Maybe because I, too, am a reader and former librarian and have harbored similar thoughts about books, Dear Fahrenheit 451 works for me. I was completely captured by Spence's impassioned, one-sided conversations to individual books. I loved her intelligent, humorous, self-deprecating, and thoroughly engaging style and tone, and dream that someday I could write as engagingly and with the hipness she delivers on every page.

Some examples are in order:

• [to Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins Mystery Series] - God, I love wandering down dicey alleys with you, roughing people up if they need it...I've begun thinking of myself as one of your characters. I've started wearing dark sunglasses and popping my collar when I'm in public, looking furtively over my shoulder every few minutes, which makes the other playgroup moms nervous. I can tell. They've stopped offering me their extra Luna bars.

• [to John Steinbeck's Cannery Row] - You've still got that quiet lopsided charm about you....Your pages look just the right shade of yellow, your text just dark and smoodgie enough to give me a deep-nostril thrill ride. The only better smell than a creaky paperback for a book sniffer like me is a real inky graphic novel.

• [to Nikki Giovanni's Love Poems] - I like to have you around in the kitchen so I can read a poem while the water boils and another while the butter melts, and so on. It's a reminder to read slow and savor you, and the smells of the cooking make me more aware of my senses.

• [to Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451] - You were created in a library, and I'm comforted by the fact that you'll remain on library shelves around the world. If we ever get to a point when you're not included in the core of a book collection, we're all fucked. Like "Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge" type fucked. Some days the world feels closer to that point than I'm comfortable with.

• [to Patti Smith's Just Kids] - I'm so smitten with you, I can't help but pick you up when I waiting for tea to boil or brushing my teeth. And especially in bed. Actually, in bed is where the trouble begins. My husband is jealous of you....I've been reading you in all of my spare moments. I haven't heard a word he's said to me to two days. 

• [to her own Future Book Collection] -  A locked door will lead into the room. This will be essential. There will be a doorbell; however, entry is denied unless visitor-candidates answer a series of questions posed by an exasperated robot voice: "Did you just put something in your mouth?" "Did you check in the pants you wore last night?" "Can I just get a minute here for Christ's sake?" Basically, my top three phrases. Once the riffraff is sorted through, serious visitors will be allowed inside if they agree to speak only about books or to remain silent and bring a cheesy snack....[the] books will be organized by Emotion, including "I'm Just Going to Read Instead of Do What I Need to Do Today" section, "Reminiscing About First Loves" section, "Am I Crying Through Laughter or Laughing Through Tears" section, etc]

Have to stop these now, but Spence give readers many more reading suggestions and witticisms in special sections, including:

• "Excuses To Tell Your Friends So You Can Stay Home with Your Books"

• "Turning Your Lover into a Reader"

• "Good Books with Bad Covers"

• "Books That Lead to More Books"

• "Books I'll Never Break Up With"

If you love reading, are looking for a wide variety of new books to peruse, or if just want to lose yourself in the wide-ranging thoughts of a clever person talking all things books and reading, Dear Fahrenheit 451 is the book to grab. But be advised. Your bedside table and list of books to be read will grow to epic size. I know mine did.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog
____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Queenan, Joe. One for the Books  

Queenan describes all aspects of his existence as a passionate book reader (who reads 32 books at a time!), including his preferences and dislikes in authors and topics, bookstores, and libraries, as well as strong opinions on borrowing/lending books, writing notes in books, and finishing a book. One of my favorite books about books. (previously reviewed here)

Pearl, Nancy. Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason  

An extensive bibliography of books and witty reviews organized by eclectic categories including "Academic Mysteries," "Armchair Travel," and "Australian Fiction," to "What a (Natural) Disaster," "Women's Friendships," and "World War II Nonfiction." Clever, passionate reviews make you want to get every book and begin reading each one immediately.. (previously reviewed here)

Berthoud, Ella. Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You   

Offers hundreds of high-quality and sometimes quirky titles and descriptions of the perfect books to fit with your needs of that moment, including "Abandonment" (Plainsong by Kent Haruf), "Age Gap Between Lovers" (A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka) and "Aging, the Horrors of" (JItterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins).  (previously reviewed here)