The Shelf: From LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading
*Starred Review* Literary critic and biographer Rose, author of The Year of Reading Proust (1997), takes us on another mind-revving reading escapade. This time she designed a literary expedition in which she read each and every book found on a shelf in the fiction section of the venerable New York Society Library, recording her adventures in “Extreme Reading” in a richly entertaining and enlightening chronicle. Among the many titles on her century-spanning, literarily diverse library shelf are the Russian classic, The Hero of Our Time, by Mikhail Lermontov; Alain Le Sage’s early eighteenth-century picaresque novel, Gil Blas; several books by Gaston Leroux, including The Phantom of the Opera; detective novels by the Edwardian novelist William Le Queux and today’s John Lescroart, and the canny and funny novels of Rhoda Lerman. Each book is a catalyst for provocative inquiries, inspiring Rose to consider the crucial truths gleaned from fiction, the lives of writers, the status of women writers past and present, the distinctions (or lack thereof) between popular and literary fiction, how libraries acquire and “weed” books, the value of reviews and literary criticism, and the many joys of reading in the digital age. A seasoned, open-minded, and passionate reader, inquisitive thinker, and delectably lucid and witty writer, Rose rallies readers to affirm our love of literature and libraries. --Donna Seaman