Rarely does a member of that unjustly maligned species, the librarian, attract the kind of attention Pearl did when she founded the first citywide reading program in Seattle in 1998. Many readers will seek her advice in this companion volume to Book Lust,
which offers a wealth of new reading lists. (Many of the books on them, she acknowledges, are out of print—making for a good opportunity, she suggests, to visit your library.) The upshot is that these are not all classics—they're just books she or someone else really enjoyed reading, presented in more than 100 lists covering a delightful range of topics, from the biographical or geographical (Winston Churchill, Africa) to favorite writers categorized as "too good to miss" (including classics such as P.G. Wodehouse and contemporary writers like Jonathan Weiner and Walter Mosley). More idiosyncratic recommendations for the questing reader include "All in the Family" (books by writer dynasties); "Dick Lit" (her much better term for Lad Lit, for which, she admits, Nick Hornby has set a high bar); and "Tricky Tricky" (books that pull a fast one on you). If you're clueless about what to read next, you'll find something to pique your interest here. (May)
