Ex Libris

To begin with, this is absolutely not the sort of book that I would gravitate towards on my own. While I love reading, I tend to stay away from books about reading-not as a rule, just as a matter of preference.

I found the first essay about her and her husband to be quite poetic and enjoyable. Many pages later, I found the essay about reading aloud to each other also quite enjoyable.

Between those chapters, I found this book to be quite...unejoyable. This book is written for a person who loves to devour books and words, not just a person who likes books and likes to read. The author mentions reading a car manual from front to back. She also goes on to describe her family's love of correcting grammatical errors in everything they read. To think that it is somehow wonderful to find joy in perceived superiority that has only been gained from a place of privilege is really quite unbearable to me. I cannot imagine how this author would function on social media. Actually—I can. I can very clearly see this author engaging in a Facebook debate and thinking it is a valid debate point to say that their competitor used “you're” incorrectly and is somehow wrong solely for that reason.

If you identify as a physical book-obsessed, grammar-worshipping, bibliophile, this book is probably for you. As someone who mostly loves books for the stories they tell, this book was not for me.