Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason (2003)

This is a neat little collection, but I personally have never been fond of isolating a topic, then looking up in a book what to read about it, which is strange given my career choice. ( )

Of her two books, this first one is the better one. One has to give Ms. Pearl credit for being such a voracious reader and for parlaying it into a career. She also deserves credit for encouraging people to read for pleasure and to find what works for them. The book does have some misses, some which I have jotted down in my updates here such as lumping scifi, fantasy, and horror in one section. Maybe it irked me because I am a reader in those genres, and I think they deserve their own treatment, not a shotgun approach. However, the book is good for readers needing ideas on what to read next. Whether you agree or disagree with some of her selections, you are bound to find something you like in these pages. It is definitely a book worth browsing and keeping handy on your shelf. It is not, however, perfect, and I guess I only say that because librarians tend to put Nancy Pearl on this pedestal as the all-knowing reader's advisor. The woman is certainly knowledgeable, but as I said, the book did have a couple of misses. In spite of that, I did find a couple of good ideas for future reading selections, so it balances out. ( )

It's great to find a book to get good reading recommendations, even if they are a bit dated. It was published in 2003.
It's organized into 175 creative, useful lists. She gives her comments on the books, anointing her favourites, so saving you a lot of disappointment with blind choices.
One tip in her introduction I appreciated, she calls it her "rule of fifty"
A guideline of how much of a book to read before discarding it.
To quote from pages xi-xii
One of my strongest-held beliefs is that no one should ever finish a book that they're not enjoying, no matter how popular or well reviewed the book is. Believe me, nobody is going to get any points in heaven by slogging their way through a book they aren't enjoying but think they ought to read. I live by what I call "the rule of fifty" which acknowledges that time is short and the world of books is immense. If you're fifty years old or younger, give every book about fifty pages before you decide to commit yourself to reading it, or give it up. If you're over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before deciding. Keep in mind that your mood has a lot to do with whether or not you will like a boa. I always leave open the option of going back to a book that I haven't liked (especially if someone I respect has recommended it to me) sometime later. I've begun many books, put them down unfinished, then returned a month or two, or years, later and ended up loving them. This happened with Matthew Kneale's English Passengers, John Crowley's Little, Big, and Andrea Barrett's The Voyage of the Narwhal.

She has written two other books like it:
- More Book Lust (2005)
- Book Lust To Go (2010) ( )

I mean, did I "read" this "books to read" book? These things mostly operate as big recommendation engines -- a leg on a greater anal, autistic (and more than slightly disqualifying, I would think) Journey through Literature, of which this account occupies no negligible place. Pearl: many recs, albeit clearly those of a librarian (for good and ill); Boxall: if you only have 150 words for each, stop spending the whole time just summarizing the shit; Mustich: at least there's an identifiable critical (?) voice here. ( )

One of the most interesting ''book about books'' I've had the pleasure to read. Nancy Pearl divides different themes, structural techniques, genres and authors, in alphabetical order, and each one of the chapters is accompanied by a comprehensive list of suggestive readings. Her writing is comprehensive and flowing, and although, I thought that she missed some books that are ''landmarks'' in a few of the genres, she brings to focus many less-read novels and non-fiction books. Perfect for those of us who wish to broaden their reading material a bit and discover new literary worlds. Enjoy! ( )