The Shelf; adventures in extreme reading in book reviews

author: Phyllis Rose

This literary critic/author gave herself a challenge: read all the books in a library shelf... then gave herself rules to determine which library shelf to pick. There had to be a specific number of books per author, and other more stringent rules. She also didn't pick a public library, but a private one (open to the public if you chose to become a member).

Some of the books she read and discussed sounded intriguing, so I put them on my wishlist. Others... well... I was glad she read them so I wouldn't have to.

She was also willing to try various translations of a specific book... something I rarely do (although I have to say I've done that for Beowulf).

One of the chapters deals with Virginia Woolfe's demand for time for women to actually write (A Room of One's Own), not that the book was reviewed here, but the author poses the question of books by women vs. books by men: do women read more by women authors than men do? Do men read women authors' work at all? If reading is to expand your mind and perspective, is reading the work of the opposite sex mind expanding?

I'd gotten an advance readers' copy; the book was just released this past week.