What can be more wonderful to a bibliophile than a book about books? Lewis Buzbee’s nonfiction essay on bookshops is a tribute to the love of reading and selling books. Buzbee draws heavily from his decades of experience as an independent bookshop employee and publishing sales representative. “Books connect us with others, but that connection is created in solitude, one reader in one chair hearing one writer, what John Irving refers to as one genius …
Books about books
Alan Bennett is most famous for his Olivier & Tony Award-winning play, The History Boys, a dramedy on the trials of high school boys heading to college. With The Uncommon Reader he veers into lightweight literary territory, distinct in his charm but low on gravitas. In The Uncommon Reader, we enter the royal household of England, where the Queen has just discovered the joy of reading on a visit to a mobile library. To accept …
Jet lag and international travel might have cut down October’s reading time, but a two-book round-up featuring Esi Edugyan’s powerful Washington Black and the classic correspondence of 84, Charing Cross Road made for a wonderful month.