I had hoped Joe Queenan’s ‘One for the Books’ would prove to be an exception from the often stuffy, professorial tomes that wax lyrical about the joys of reading, as long as that reading is almost exclusively authored by, or about, Dead White Dudes (D.W.D).

In part it was, but unfortunately Queenan’s humour doesn’t quite negate his narrow definition of what ‘good books’ are. Queenan is a book snob, dismissing genre fiction almost in its entirety, and championing way too many D.W.D.

I was particularly frustrated by Queenan’s dismissive attitudes to libraries (his white male privilege is showing there), and his hatred of ebooks, and ereaders. I own about equal amounts of both print and ebooks, that brings my current total to somewhere over 4000 books. I have read many more, owned many more, borrowed many more, given away many more. I have, and I doubt anyone I know would dispute it, ‘...engaged in an intense, lifelong love affair with books...’ ,and I don’t care if they are written longhand on parchment, or are a complicated string of binary numbers...a book, is a book, is a book, no matter the format.

So, sadly, my search for a book from a self confessed bibliophile who isn’t contemptuous of the other 99% of readers continues.

This is a love letter to the reading life. There were some interesting and entertaining stories and obscure book titles. Not my favorite book about books but readable.

Provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

My apologies; if I requested this book, it appears that due to family commitments I was not able to read it before the book was archived. I'm sorry it has lingered this long.