Monday, January 20, 2020

For the Love of Books (Graham Tarrant)

Graham Tarrant's For the Love of Books has as its subtitle Stories of Literary Loves, Banned Books, Author Feuds, Extraordinary Characters, and More. Sounds exciting, right? On paper, it certainly does, but the way it is set up, it reads more like an encyclopedia or textbook.

Each literary topic is divided into small sections designed, I'm assuming, to be read a few at a time. This setup seems like it would make it an easy read, but it did just the opposite for me. The sections were so short that they provided very little new insights about the author or book they were talking about. I would have liked the author to have taken a more in-depth approach instead of just giving the reader a limited overview.

I found For the Love of Books to not be interesting enough to read all the way through at a normal book's pace. In fact, I began it in August 2019 and didn't fully complete it until now. For bibliophiles, it definitely offers some fun tidbits about books and the authors behind them. But with no clear path through, it's difficult to see the point of it all.

MY RATING - 2