In this collection of charming and relatable reflections, beloved blogger and author Anne Bogel leads you to remember the book that first hooked you, the place where you first fell in love with reading, and all the books and moments afterward that helped make you the reader you are today. They are part of who we are and we can't imagine life without them. It gives these volumes an afterlife they might never otherwise have had.īooks are companions to life and mirror the experience of living itself.'A book lover's delight.'-Annie Spence, librarian and author of Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks Reading isn't just a way to pass the time-it's a lifestyle. All she needs to do is glance at a title, and she’ll be taken right back to when she was reading the book. It helps her to remember all the books she’s read – hardly something she could do extemporaneously. It’s hardly exciting, but it gets the job done. Just when she can, and just a few details: the name of the book, the date, and a little star if she’s especially fond of it. She used to simply retort, “I’d rather be reading.” But then she became jealous of a friend who kept an especially rich log.Įver since that moment, she’s written a simple log herself. Bogel was skeptical of such practices at first. Some vociferous readers even keep diaries, logging key scenes and memorable quotations from books. That’s why it’s important to keep a record. Every book is bound tight to the time in your life when you read it.īut like all memories, memories of reading can get mixed and foggy. Or, more painfully, which books you chucked out when your heart was first broken. Maybe you still remember which book you were reading when you took your first trip abroad. Just as the smell of a certain kind of floor polish can take you back to old school gymnasiums and memories of vaulting the horse, so books can take you back to certain times in your life.

If you remember what your old favorites used to be, then you’re also going to be reminded of who you used to be. The risk was that it might appear that she never tackled serious literature.īut of course, no one has the same favorite book forever they change. On the other hand, if she claimed a soft spot for Marisa de los Santos’s lighthearted romantic comedy Love Walked In, maybe she’d seem a little more fun. If she’d made the case for Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, maybe her friend would think she was a boring old windbag who restricted herself only to the classics. It’s a pretty intimate question after all, and she was also worried about what this new friend would think of her answer. They give a real insight into the soul of their reader.Īnne Bogel was asked that very question when she met a new friend over coffee one day.īut she wasn’t ready to divulge. It’s the classic question most of us have asked or been asked at an interview or on a date: 'What’s your favorite book?”

I'd Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel