Nancy Pearl

Warning: Severe Inflation Danger to your TBR
Review of the HarperOne hardcover edition (Sept. 2020)

I'll admit that I wasn't familiar with the previous work of Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager, but any librarian who comes with her own action figure is de facto a force to be reckoned with ;)

Image sourced from library.myunion.edu at https://library.myunion.edu/news-librarians-changed-history/

Pearl and Schwager interview 23 prominent contemporary American authors, mostly novelists, with some show more prepared questions about their childhood reading habits and inspirations through to their most admired books by other authors. As each conversation proceeds, there are tangents taken so that all of the interviews are unique and not boilerplate.

The favourites are too many to list here (probably it is 300 to 400 overall with 23 authors x 15-20 faves each) but several had common favourites.
Ursula K. Le Guin The Earthsea Trilogy (listed by Urrea, Johnson*)
Richard Adams Watership Down (listed by Egan, Miller, Chabon)
Daphne du Maurier Rebecca (listed by Egan, Greer)
Saul Bellow Herzog (listed by Chabon, Eggers, Ford)
Denis Johnson Jesus' Son (listed by Eggers, Nguyen, Vida)
Edward Said Orientalism (listed by Lalami, Nguyen)
Toni Morrison Song of Solomon (listed by Lalami, Hirshfield, Nguyen*)
Edith Wharton The House of Mirth (listed by Egan, Hustvedt)
Joan Didion and William Shakespeare showed up several times as well, but not necessarily the same book or play.

I really can't recommend this highly enough, especially if one of your favourite authors is among the interviewees. I found every single interview to be interesting, and, as mentioned above, a severe danger to my TBR. So be forewarned ;)

Thanks to Liisa, Martin & family for this very thoughtful gift!!

Trivia and Links
Nancy Pearl's website has a selection of writer's quotes from the book here.

* Not the specific book as the others, but recommends the author in general. show less

As a public librarian, Nancy Pearl is, of course, my hero (yes, I have the Nancy Pearl action figure). Nobody does reader's advisory like Nancy Pearl does reader's advisory! So when I heard she wrote a book, I naturally wanted to read it right away. At the same, I was a little apprehensive, because knowing what goes into a good book doesn't necessarily mean that you can write a good book. I needn't have worried.

Although the book is called George & Lizzie, this is really Lizzie's story. One show more is tempted to say that she was raised by wolves, but of course that's not true. She was really raised by behavioral psychologists, who treated her every action as an idea for further research. Predictably, she acts out by doing some, shall we say, less-than-socially-acceptable things. These things have repercussions, of course, in her later relationships, but we can't help loving Lizzie, even while she does everything possible to sabotage her own life and happiness.

Then comes George. We learn enough about George's childhood and family to make him a believable character, but since the book still focuses more on Lizzie, the real question is whether she can get over herself long enough to actually make a positive long-lasting relationship with George. There were a few plot points that I couldn't quite suss out (including the somewhat important point of why Lizzie agreed to marry George in the first place when she was still obsessed (yes, obsessed) with someone else), but those confusions were easily overcome in the excellent writing that continued to pull me forward.

And pulled forward I was, right up until the very natural and well-done ending. Pearl never takes the easy road with her characters, and the whole book moves along without ever giving the reader the feeling that the whole thing is just one big contrivance. Brava to Mrs. Pearl for making the leap from reader to author. I look forward to reading more. show less

More like a 3.5, but I'm rounding up. I had some problems with it-do we still need to write female protagonists who get hung up on sex? Why? Why does this still need to be a thing? And George was a little too perfect for my taste, but overall I really enjoyed this.

*E-ARC received from NetGalley with the understanding that I would post an honest review. No money or other goods were exchanged, and all views are my own.*

In "The Writer's Library", Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager travel the U.S. to interview 23 different authors in their homes about the books they read. The result is a fantastic collection that gives the reader a front-row seat to warm conversations about reading and how it's impacted each author's writing. Each interview is as unique as the show more author, with no pre-set questions making them organic and conversational. It felt like sitting with them in their living rooms and listening to them gush about their favorites. And for any readers like me ready to note all a favorite author's recommendations, there is a list of books mentioned at the end of each interview.

It's fascinating to me to read both about the writer's craft and their reading, so this is the perfect book for me. Nancy and Jeff pick a variety of authors, and it was interesting to see how similar and different each author's list was - Lorrie Moore gets mentioned a lot, for example, and a couple of authors would disagree about The Great Gatsby. Some loved science fiction, while others listed more classics. The interviewers and authors share an infectious love of reading, making this collection highly enjoyable and sure to add to your TBR - both of books written by the interviewed authors, and the ones they love! show less