Reading books about people reading books? Yes. I’m a librarian. I do like books. And I take this a step further because I like to read books in which the author discusses the book or books that he/she has read. It’s interesting to understand what they got out of the book, why they picked it up, and to see how it compares with my own opinions of a book.
In addition, these books can be used as a book review tool, albeit a rather long review. But it’s nice to find new titles to read whilst you are reading other books. (It’s always about the books.)
I also enjoy hearing the history behind a book: how the story came to be, the life of the author, and the impact of the book’s publication. There is more to a book than just what’s between the covers.
Try these titles and find out:
The Shelf: From LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading / Phyllis Rose
The End of Your Life Book Club / Will Schwalbe
The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary / Simon Winchester
My Life in Middlemarch / Rebecca Mead
The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 books to cure what ails you / Ella Berthoud & Susan Elderkin
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books / Azar Nafisi
Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages / Ammon Shea
The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books / Azar Nafisi
So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why it Endures / Maureen Corrigan
The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie / Wendy McClure
That’s so meta.
