Some books about books...

It took me a while to get through Matthew Battle's book, The Library: An Unquiet History, but once I finally picked it back up I breezed through it and learned all sorts of interesting new stuff about the Library: from the burning of the Library at Alexandria, to Swift's arguing the Ancients over the Moderns, to just how crazy and backwards the genius of Dewy was. Each chapter had an over arching time frame it focused on and within the chapter a more specific event of that period meant to bring the reader in. Personally I would have been fine with out the fifty pages that focused on Swift (but maybe that's because of the aversion I have had towards him since college) which also happened to the part of the book that stopped me up for two moths, but I think some of you would really enjoy that part (namely, my husband). In short, if you find yourself in awe when you go into the library and would like to learn a bit more about it's history this book is a good place to start.

I found myself totally engrossed in Maureen Corrigan's book, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading-so much so that I felt disgruntled existing in any world other than hers. I highly recommend picking it up if you are an avid reader, she not only gives you an amazing book list to look into but she also discusses so many great and new ideas that are fun to ponder. I particularly loved her idea of the "female extreme adventure novel" in which she argues that female characters, more often than we recognize, have extreme --life suspending--adventures that get passed over because they don't speak to that outward notion of adventure we have become so used to. She also discussed the "honorary male" or "learned androgyny" status women adhere to to be taken seriously in the world of reading--both in real life and in stories, an issue I struggle with in my life and therefore found very eye opening. If there is one book you should pick because of this blog, this is the book. It's wonderful.