Chapter Fifty-Five: One for the Books

I started out really loving this book about books by writer and book-reviewer Joe Queenan, although it started to wear a bit thin by its end.  It is a non-fiction book for avid crazy readers (like myself) about Queenan's own insane reading habits.  I cannot recommend that anyone read this book who is not obsessed with reading.  Let's just say that Queenan makes me look almost illiterate.  Anyway, it was really fun for me to read about another reader's experiences, although some of his prejudices about what he will and won't read--and especially his views on children's literature irritated me.  (Children's literature is for children, he says at one point, anathema for me, considering that I spent my last year of college writing a hundred-page thesis trying to explore what the heck children's literature even is.)  (I was almost equally irritated when he said he hated people from Massachusetts and therefore wouldn't read Hawthorne--this was only slightly redeemed when he said he refused to read books about Yankees fans; while I don't share that prejudice, I do have untoward feelings towards Yankees fans in general.)  Anyway, Queenan at times is a bit snooty about certain things: what he will and won't read, how much he reads as compared to the average American, etc.  Still, despite some irritations, as an insatiable reader myself, I largely enjoyed this book, but I'd only recommend it if you are also an avid reader.