≡ Download Gratis My Life with Bob Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books Plot Ensues Pamela Paul 9781627796316 Books

My Life with Bob Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books Plot Ensues Pamela Paul 9781627796316 Books

Download As PDF : My Life with Bob Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books Plot Ensues Pamela Paul 9781627796316 Books

My Life with Bob Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books Plot Ensues Pamela Paul 9781627796316 Books

I have to admit that when I first heard about this memoir, even though I'm a devoted book lover and have been since I learned how to read, I wondered what a book about an author's book collection would be about. Would it just be a list of books, most likely ones I hadn't read and probably never would? But from the first page, I was utterly entranced, because Paul speaks to readers--not just the readers of her specific book, but people who simply love to read. (Yes, I have this book as both the Kindle edition and in print, but once you start reading if you are at all old school, you will become easily convinced by her persuasiveness that paper is always better.) Paul walks us through her journey as a lifelong reader as well as a bibliophile, who doesn't just passively read but becomes immersed in books, both fiction and nonfiction, as well as fascinated by the lives of their creators. She tries to meet Spalding Gray, so moved by his work and convinced they could be literary BFFs.

Each chapter's title covers a different book, from classics like The Grapes of Wrath and Anna Karenina to The Hunger Games (which she read after giving birth) to an assortment of titles, some of which I've heard of, some of which I haven't. And in case you're thinking, I don't know anything about those books, the beauty of this book is that you don't have to. She's not analyzing every plot Cliffs Notes style, but personal style. She weaves both the plot of her beloved books and how she came to read them with how they affected her at a given moment in her life, much of it while traveling. In fact, the plot of her own life somewhat sneaks up on you. You think you're at a happy high point only to realize that things are about to go downhill. Paul writes of reading as a sister, daughter, mother, girlfriend, wife, friend, traveler (reading Swimming to Cambodia while in Cambodia) and professional book reviewer, and how each of these roles and relationships changes her relationship with books.

This was definitely a book I raced through, but also wanted to slow down and savor. Perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay it, and likely one I would imagine anyone reading it will walk away from, is that Paul made me want to read books I've never thought about reading before, like The Trial. She's not trying to foist her favorite books onto readers (this is not a "this is what you should read" book, but rather a "this is how these books touched my life" book), but nevertheless, these books are vivid characters here. By the end, I wished I'd had a book of books for all those hazily remembered titles I recall clinging to, learning from, and being fascinated by but whose memories now consist only of the color of the book cover and the genre. I actually went looking for Kafka, Tama Janaowitz and Spalding Gray in a bookstore immediately upon finishing My Life with Bob. Alas, they didn't have them, but they are next on my reading list.


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My Life with Bob Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books Plot Ensues Pamela Paul 9781627796316 Books Reviews

2 1/2 stars. As many other reviewers have said, I wanted to like this book. I have been a voracious reader since childhood, and I thought that reading the experiences of a fellow reader would be fun. I read the introduction and first chapter here on , and I could relate to a lot of it. But in the end, this series of essays didn't hold my interest. And the "plot ensues" part of the subtitle is wrong - there is no overall narrative, just various recollections. Some of the chapters are good, but many are dull, and in the final chapter, the author goes off the deep end in pursuit of a unifying theme. "Aren't we all writers these days?" (because we text and write Facebook messages and such). Well, no. That's not what anyone means when they say that someone is a writer.

I admit this is unfair, but when she was recounting her travels in China, particularly the part about half-starving herself in sympathy with those who faced horrors in the Cultural Revolution, I found myself thinking, "If you called your dad, he could stop it all.". After that I just couldn't take the book seriously any more.

This book did give me an even greater appreciation for Nick Hornby's "Stuff I've Been Reading" column, collected in Ten Years in the Tub.
I heard about this book on NPR (of course). The premise of a memoir written through the lens of books was just quirky enough to get me to want to read this book. But I thought the book would have depth on what the books meant to her a la Azar Nafisi's "The Republic of Imagination" of even Maureen Corrigan's "So We Read On." Instead, Paul's book is a fairly straightforward story of a girl and woman who loved to read with books used as somewhat secondary framing structures.

The book is an easy read and Paul is a good writer. The chapters are short, so it's a good book for the commute, the beach, or just before bed. Towards the end, when Paul becomes the editor of the NY Times book review, the book starts to suffer from typical not-very-interesting New York stories about who's in whose circles, and how Paul met so-and-so. She also does not ever seem to really deal with her own relationship to class and privilege. She writes about being broke while working in Thailand and somehow falling into an adventure with wealth intelligentsia travelers there.

Paul seems to have THE dream job of anyone who reads a lot, but her discussion of the hard work of how she actually gets there remains off the page, much like how she acknowledges getting an Ivy League education, but never mentions where. Being coy about her enormous good fortune keeps the reader at arm's length, and the narrative of her journey to the Times takes a back seat to some admittedly entertaining anecdotes such as almost being abducted by human traffickers at a cafe in Italy.

All in all, My Life with Bob is a very readable book whose best attribute is reassuring the rest of us that there really are many book lovers still around.
I have to admit that when I first heard about this memoir, even though I'm a devoted book lover and have been since I learned how to read, I wondered what a book about an author's book collection would be about. Would it just be a list of books, most likely ones I hadn't read and probably never would? But from the first page, I was utterly entranced, because Paul speaks to readers--not just the readers of her specific book, but people who simply love to read. (Yes, I have this book as both the edition and in print, but once you start reading if you are at all old school, you will become easily convinced by her persuasiveness that paper is always better.) Paul walks us through her journey as a lifelong reader as well as a bibliophile, who doesn't just passively read but becomes immersed in books, both fiction and nonfiction, as well as fascinated by the lives of their creators. She tries to meet Spalding Gray, so moved by his work and convinced they could be literary BFFs.

Each chapter's title covers a different book, from classics like The Grapes of Wrath and Anna Karenina to The Hunger Games (which she read after giving birth) to an assortment of titles, some of which I've heard of, some of which I haven't. And in case you're thinking, I don't know anything about those books, the beauty of this book is that you don't have to. She's not analyzing every plot Cliffs Notes style, but personal style. She weaves both the plot of her beloved books and how she came to read them with how they affected her at a given moment in her life, much of it while traveling. In fact, the plot of her own life somewhat sneaks up on you. You think you're at a happy high point only to realize that things are about to go downhill. Paul writes of reading as a sister, daughter, mother, girlfriend, wife, friend, traveler (reading Swimming to Cambodia while in Cambodia) and professional book reviewer, and how each of these roles and relationships changes her relationship with books.

This was definitely a book I raced through, but also wanted to slow down and savor. Perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay it, and likely one I would imagine anyone reading it will walk away from, is that Paul made me want to read books I've never thought about reading before, like The Trial. She's not trying to foist her favorite books onto readers (this is not a "this is what you should read" book, but rather a "this is how these books touched my life" book), but nevertheless, these books are vivid characters here. By the end, I wished I'd had a book of books for all those hazily remembered titles I recall clinging to, learning from, and being fascinated by but whose memories now consist only of the color of the book cover and the genre. I actually went looking for Kafka, Tama Janaowitz and Spalding Gray in a bookstore immediately upon finishing My Life with Bob. Alas, they didn't have them, but they are next on my reading list.