Jane Mount

A beautiful effort of book-love! Jane Mount has a great gift for exciting people about reading -perhaps especially a younger audience - and brings her passion and art to bear on the many aspects of bibliophilia she explores in this well-crafted volume. While I personally enjoyed her previous effort, My Ideal Bookshelf, more than this one -that is due to my own idiosyncrasies not her lovely book. I did find certain disciplines quite under-represented or absent -like the sciences and medicine show more -and other areas over-represented by very new and untested by time books. Still I very much enjoyed this and have passed it on to a budding reader who is lapping it up and taking notes! Brava show less

A resounding 5 stars for Mount's compilation of everything a true book geek loves. Book porn to the max, a definite triple X.
Just gaze upon the cover, admire those sexy spines that the author herself had painted and made a career of customizing for her patrons. The colors and titles tease you with familiar and unknown pleasures.
Tenderly now, open the book. More tantalizing spines. The familiarity of those you've known, their names so easily roll off your tongue, luscious titles escape from show more your lips and bring back forgotten memories from a different time, a different place. The longing and desire to hold those who have escaped you, but don't despair, you can have them too. They are there for the asking. Where, you might ask? Gently separate the pages, the author has painted pictures of tantalizing book stores and striking libraries beloved by many.
More, more! Yes, there is more to satisfy your geeky needs! Jane Mount allows you to see into the creative dens of authors, their writing sanctuaries where they put pen to paper, their pets who gently caressed their ankles while they wrote.
Don't stop! You won't need to. There is so much more between the covers. Like an onion, peel away the layers of information the author offers you. You love it: Genres galore, reading recommendations and fun quizzes.
Aaaah, a most satisfying experience, indeed. You'll want to revisit this tome again and again. It will never grow old. show less

Perhaps a Bit Too Fluffy and Comfy
Review of the Chronicle Books 2018 hardcover edition

I enjoyed the front half of this miscellany tremendously and was even considering a 4 or 5-star rating at that stage. In the back half though, which is dominated by non-fiction, I was starting to get somewhat tired of the umpteenth page of cookbook/foodbook related lists and illustrations. So it was a mixed experience overall.

If you are the type of person who enjoys book lists and is intrigued by glimpses show more of book spines on shelves, there is a lot to enjoy here. It is somewhat of a mash-up of "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die", "Footnotes from the World's Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers", "Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks", "Bookstore Cats", World's Greatest Libraries, Writer's Rooms, Book Recommendations, Book Quizzes, and several other miscellaneous categories.

The paintings of books spines and covers are generally well done, some of the author ones perhaps less so (I laughed at another reviewer's comment: "the portraits of the authors started to scare me after awhile"). A few of the book spines looked all out of proportion e.g. pg. 40's Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha" (usually about 130-150 pages) does not strike me as a larger book than D.H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers" (usually about 600-700 pages) and pg. 77's Elena Ferrante's "My Brilliant Friend" does not strike me as a tinier book than Gail Honeyman's "Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine" (both about 300+ pages). Those may be minor quibbles, but are exactly the type of thing that a book obsessive will notice.

Overall, my sense was that this sticks to the popular 20th-21st century top-sellers and doesn't feature anything very much that is off the beaten path or transgressive or challenging. I didn't really spot all that much to add to my To Be Read list although admittedly I am rather set in my own quirky paths for that. I was impressed that Niviaq Korneliusen's "Crimson" aka "Homo Sapienne" aka "Last Night in Nuuk", was singled out as the example for Greenlandic literature. That at least was off the beaten path. show less

What a delight! Mount wrote and illustrated this beautiful and heavy ode to books and reading. There are recommendations organized by genre. There are drawings and bios of independent bookstores around the world, and many of the author's drawings of stacks of books. You'll have a page about Virginia Woolf's writing shed and her process, and then illustrated pages about writer-owned bookstores. If you love getting trusted recommendations or you love books on books (one of my favorite genres), show more you'll want this. I know, I'm gushing. show less