Land's Genius History
The History of the Book in 100 Books, by Roderick Cave and Sara Ayad
The measure of success for this kind of book is how often I find myself really really wanting to read bits of it aloud to my husband and show him interesting pictures. This particular item did very well, because I wanted that A LOT. (He cheerfully forebore and was even truly interested in a few of them.) Excellently made with high quality images of the books discussed, fascinating selections, thoroughly contextualized; the prose was normal-academic-dry, but that was fine.
(9)
Millicent Min, Girl Genius, by Lisa Yee
When I was nine, I was really into books with compelling but outcast protagonists and tons of weird quirky details that made everything feel realer (cf Harriet the Spy and The Great Gilly Hopkins). My inner nine-year-old was SO into this book. I liked it too.
(10, O5)
Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown, by Michael Cunningham
Read this because I was curious to see if I would like his writing style (before committing to one of his novels - this one is short!), and because Provincetown is one of those places I've read so much about that I'd like to go there eventually, just to make the literary ghosts realer for myself. I do like his writing style, and I felt like this book shifted the place-in-my-head closer to tangible. Woot.
(11)
The measure of success for this kind of book is how often I find myself really really wanting to read bits of it aloud to my husband and show him interesting pictures. This particular item did very well, because I wanted that A LOT. (He cheerfully forebore and was even truly interested in a few of them.) Excellently made with high quality images of the books discussed, fascinating selections, thoroughly contextualized; the prose was normal-academic-dry, but that was fine.
(9)
Millicent Min, Girl Genius, by Lisa Yee
When I was nine, I was really into books with compelling but outcast protagonists and tons of weird quirky details that made everything feel realer (cf Harriet the Spy and The Great Gilly Hopkins). My inner nine-year-old was SO into this book. I liked it too.
(10, O5)
Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown, by Michael Cunningham
Read this because I was curious to see if I would like his writing style (before committing to one of his novels - this one is short!), and because Provincetown is one of those places I've read so much about that I'd like to go there eventually, just to make the literary ghosts realer for myself. I do like his writing style, and I felt like this book shifted the place-in-my-head closer to tangible. Woot.
(11)