When the opportunity to review this book came up, I knew there was no way I could turn it down! Get this on your TBR pile ASAP and watch for my review this Saturday – the 29th!
JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS LOVER:
A Field Guide to the Hearts and Minds of Readers Everywhere
By Lauren Leto
What should you do when you’ve bluffed about finishing Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann and someone corners you to debate an important plot point? What does the e-reader revolution mean for those who get a thrill from noting the book in a stranger’s hands—and then either silently deride that person or instantly feel a connection? Do you need help speaking condescendingly about revered classics like To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby Dick, and The Great Gatsby? Do you wonder what your son or daughter will grow up to be if you read from Clifford or Eloise every night?
Bibliophile Lauren Leto, the co-founder of the popular website Texts From Last Night and a well-known blogger, has spent lots of time contemplating these and many other questions. And in JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS LOVER: A Field Guide to the Hearts and Minds of Readers Everywhere (Harper Perennial; On Sale: October 2, 2012; $14.99; Trade Paperback Original), she delivers a wickedly funny, deeply perceptive, and thoroughly winning analysis of literary culture and discussion while also flashing back to the book-related episodes
from her past that have molded her into the person she is today.
Although Leto isn’t a scholar of literature, she has been an avid reader for most of her life and as she stipulates at the outset of JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS LOVER, her opinions, wisecracks, and sarcastic comments come from a place of admiration. A rabid Harry Potter fanatic—she once trekked across Japan to get her hands on the newest installment—who needs the anti-anxiety properties of the latest Janet Evanovich whenever she flies, this self-professed book nerd appreciates a wide variety of genres and writers, and she can talk about Jackie Collins and John Updike with equal fluency.
Her brilliant, razor-sharp commentary touches on a range of topics as she advises how to fake having read Dostoevsky, Ayn Rand, Ian McEwan, David Sedaris, Jack Kerouac, and Zadie Smith among others; provides cheat sheets on how to write like icons including Cormac McCarthy; gives Twitter-sized reviews of recent memoirs by notables from Barack Obama to Tori Spelling; and reveals the secrets to stereotyping individuals based on their favorite authors (for example, she describes Tom Clancy enthusiasts as “people who skipped gym by hiding under the bleachers.”).
Leto’s knowledge and passion shine through on every page, whether she’s profiling people based on the content of their bookshelves, spotlighting underappreciated fictional treasures, sharing her rules for reading in public places, lamenting the death of bookstores, or weighing in on book club etiquette. Original, smart, and compulsively entertaining, JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS LOVER deftly pokes fun at and pays tribute to the world of books and its inhabitants, making it a must-read for just about everyone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Lauren Leto dropped out of law school to start Texts From Last Night, and she co-authored the book Texts from Last Night: All the Texts No One Remembers Sending. Leto created the quote app Banters and is working on a new social reading site called Findings. A native of the Detroit area, she currently lives and works in Brooklyn.
JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS LOVER:
A Field Guide to the Hearts and Minds of Readers Everywhere
By Lauren Leto
Harper Perennial
269 pages
On Sale: October 2, 2012
This sounds fabulous. I'm going to preorder right now.
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