Lynda C. (Readnmachine) reviewed on 9/22/2022 + 1474 more book reviews

This quirky little book takes a unique idea and develops it with verve and affection. In large part, it is precisely what it says it is â a series of letters to books, as if they were people â love letters, thank-you notes, quick apologies, and Dear John missives, using the point of view of either a librarian or an avid reader (both of which describe the author). In saying goodbye to an outdated, no longer popular cookbook, Librarian Spence writes âYou are delightful and you're going to make a swell book â for someone else. At the used book sale.â In a thank-you letter to a favorite children's book, Reader Spence writes âI've wanted to write you for so long. Since I was just a kid â before I had the right words to tell you how much I loved your dark humor, or thank you for making a bookish girl with DIY bangs like me the hero of a story.â

Most readers will probably find at least one of their favorites mentioned here, and most will come away with a list of titles to be added to their TBR stack or authors to be sampled â my score was eight. It doesn't hurt that many of her favorites are also in my permanent collection. You may find yourself nodding when Spence praises a favorite title or looking askance and thinking âDid we read the same book?â when she disses one.

Spence winds up the book by reverting to librarian-ism and compiling several recommended reading lists, but again she manages to do it with her own special flair. We have a list of book pairs that deal with essentially the same concept but from radically different viewpoints, books that deal with alternate realities, books to lure non-readers into reading, and my favorite â books that lead to more books â e.g. those reading adventures in which perhaps a book set in a certain locale leads you to reading up on that area which drags you into the biography of someone important in its history which plunks you down in the middle of a book about a political or technological revolution, wondering how you got there.

She also graces us with a âRecovery Readingâ list â âbooks that you turn to when you're on the mend from a book that gave you nightmares or left you in a dark headspace and you need some lighter fare but don't want to give up quality.â

This breezy little book can be read in an afternoon, or it can lead directly down the rabbit-hole of bibliophilia. You might want to pack a lunch and maybe take a sweater, just in case.

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