Books for Living

Starred review from October 17, 2016
The right book at the right time can change your life, Schwalbe (The End of Your Life Book Club) argues as he distills a lifetime of reading recommendations down to this personal list of books for many moods and occasions. The first book that Schwalbe recommends is Lin Yutang’s The Importance of Living, an interesting work of practical philosophy that Schwalbe returns to over and over. Schwalbe also includes essays on children’s books, YA, classics, and recent book such as A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara’s 2015 novel. He uses these brief essays as springboards into other topics, such as worry over our Orwellian addiction to smartphones, the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and why napping should be deemed a human right. His experience taking a class in ancient Greek and reading The Odyssey turns into a memoir about a teacher who inspired him. When he reflects on Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, he thinks of the high school librarian who subtly provided him with books by gay writers. Schwalbe’s tremendous experience with reading and his stellar taste make for a fine guide to the varied and idiosyncratic list of books for which he advocates. By the end of the book, all serious readers will have added some titles to their to-read lists. Agent: John Brockman, Brockman Inc.

October 15, 2016
A self-help book about books.Publishing executive Schwalbe had a bestseller with The End of Your Life Book Club (2012), a poignant memoir about growing up in a reading family and a two-person book club: the author and his ill mother. This follow-up employs a similar approach, with him discovering all kinds of books or poems "to help me make sense of the world, to help me become a better person." His "manifesto for readers" is not about his favorite books but those that helped him when he had a need. Written in a chatty, conversational style, the book is thematically organized by a wide variety of needs: slowing down, searching, trusting, napping, praying, etc. One book's shadow looms large: Lin Yutang's The Importance of Living--"there is no book I turn to more often." It "lives up to the promise of its title." When Schwalbe feels like quitting, he turns to "Bartleby, the Scrivener," the "patron saint of quitters." He revisits David Copperfield, a "miracle of a book," whenever he's gone too long without remembering another David, a "beautiful, vibrant friend" who died. From Stuart Little, Schwalbe learns that, in the words of E.B. White, "questing is more important than finding." Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train "gives us the tools we need to try to figure out whom we can trust," while Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran is a "book about books changing lives, and it's a book that has saved lives." Schwalbe doesn't go into that much detail about each book; rather, he leads by example, focusing on a book (Gift from the Sea, The Taste of Country Cooking, Zen in the Art of Archery) in the context of something specific and personal that happened to him. In an age when the number of readers is declining, a delightful book like this might just snare a few new recruits.

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January 1, 2017

Schwalbe's earlier book, The End of Your Life Book Club, was a best-selling addition to the swelling wave of affliction memoirs. This latest effort, bearing an equally misleading and presumptuous title, is a collection of essays on his emotional and psychological attachment to specific books. Unfortunately, this attachment is not always elaborated. Schwalbe is often more preoccupied with recounting episodes of personal angst and the misfortune of friends. The books are incidental afterthoughts. His essay on Hari Yanagihara's novel A Little Life is really about his aversion to hugging; the one about Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca is about guilt at not being closer to a friend who drank himself to death--his friend's favorite book was Rebecca; and the piece about Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon tells of a friend who reduced his library to 100 books, one of which was Morrison's. When Schwalbe does comment on books of personal consequence (e.g., E.B. White's Stuart Little, Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Teheran) he communicates genuine passion and sensibility yet offers disappointingly commonplace insights to those readings. VERDICT For readers who prefer their tea lukewarm.--Lonnie Weatherby, McGill Univ. Lib., Montreal

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2016
Reading, Schwalbe writes, is one of the few things you do alone that makes you feel less alone. This publishing executive and author of the best-selling memoir The End of Your Life Book Club (2012) also states, I've always believed that everything you need to know you can find in a book. Crime fiction, he suggests, can teach us a lot about trust. Orwell's 1984 prompts Schwalbe to observe that books offer shelter from the tyranny of digital bombardment and endless connectivity, coaxing us to slow down, savor, and ponder. This is the theme of The Importance of Living (1937) by Lin Yutang, a long-forgotten philosophical work that serves as the touchstone for Schwalbe's tribute to the endless bounty of reading. Each chapter about a beloved bookStuart Little, David Copperfield, Song of Solomon, Bird by Birdis a finely crafted, generously candid, and affecting personal essay, none more moving than the homage to his boarding-school librarian, who subtly steered him to James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, having realized that I was gay at just about the same time I did. In this warmly engaging, enlightening, and stirring memoir-in-books and literary celebration, Schwalbe reminds us that reading isn't just a strike against narrowness, mind control, and domination; it's one of the world's greatest joys. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: So popular was Schwalbe's previous ode to reading, his new book will be accorded a substantial print run and strong promotion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)