The Shelf--From LEQ to LES--Adventures in Extreme Reading

January 6, 2014
The premise is simple: Rose (A Woman of Letters) picked one shelf in the New York Society Library to read and review. After establishing a few rules—a reasonably equal number of male and female authors, for example—Rose decided on the LEQ to LES shelf and began to read, with titles including: the obscure novellas of Austrian writer Alexander Lernet-Holenia, Rhonda Lerman’s feminist romp Call Me Ishtar, and Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera. The reviews here aren’t especially concerned with persuading people to read the books. Instead, Rose uses the texts and her research about their authors as a jumping-off point to talk about literature as a whole. An entire chapter goes by without introducing a new book from the shelf as Rose processes her thoughts about women writers and privilege in fiction. Ultimately, Rose explores how books reach readers. Literary merit, she argues, comes not from the praise of reviewers or critics but from “qualities that would allow a good reader to read it more than once with pleasure.” The “common reader” of book clubs and Amazon reviews has as much right to judge as traditional gatekeepers. Rose’s experiment provides specific case studies to use in weighing the age-old question: which books are worth keeping? For skeptics of the canon, this book will make the cut. Illus. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency.

March 15, 2014
A year of reading randomly. In another literary memoir, Rose (The Year of Reading Proust, 1997, etc.) chronicles the year she spent reading 23 works of fiction on a shelf designated LEQ to LES at the New York Society Library in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Although she had no expectations about the quality of the books on this particular shelf, the project excited her: "[N]no one in the history of the world had read exactly this series of novels," she writes. It seemed like an adventure in "Extreme Reading. To go where no one had gone before." She chose the shelf on the basis of a few self-imposed rules: Several authors needed to appear, and only one could have more than five books, of which she would read three; there would be both contemporary and older works; one book needed to be a classic that she had always wanted to read. Describing her project as "organic...like a travel journal," Rose uses each book to take her down unexpected paths: Reading Nabokov's translation of Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time (the classic she meant to read) sent her to read several other translations in an effort to connect with a story she found, at first, stilted. Rhoda Lerman's Call Me Ishtar and several other novels inspired Rose to herself contact Lerman, with whom she felt such an "instant rapport" that the two became friends. Noting that her shelf contained works of only three women, Rose pauses in one chapter to ask about the challenges and preoccupations of women writers. Lisa Lerner's unsettling science fiction, Just Like Beauty, led Rose to track down the author, who, like Lerman, is now a friend. Using websites and Facebook, Rose experienced "the fun of participating in a virtual conversation about literature at any moment of the day or night." Chatty, enthusiastic and at times rambling, Rose is a welcoming guide on her latest journey of literary discovery.

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Starred review from May 1, 2014
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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2013

Author of the National Book Award-nominated A Woman of Letters, Rose dug to the heart of why fiction works by reading from a shelf she chose randomly at a Manhattan lending library. LEQ to LES yields Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time, Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, a California-based mystery, and more.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2014

Read a shelf, any shelf. That is how the author's experiment at the New York Society Library began. Rose, a 1979 National Book Award finalist for Women of Letters, a biography of Virginia Woolf, decided to read an entire section of literature at her local library, forgoing books preselected for her from reviews, best seller lists, and award panels. In her quest to identify the shelf, Rose compiles many rules to be broken. Finally she selects on LEQ to LES, which ranges from Russian literature to detective fiction. Rose's analysis of each selection includes in-depth research on the authors and discussions with writers about their work. In between dissecting or agonizing over her choices, Rose offers general commentary on reading. She explains the "kiss of death" for authors who aren't loved by women since they buy the most books. She provides critique on the public perception of authors who write about family and feelings: when men write about that topic, it is literature; when females write on the same issue, it is women's fiction. On rereading novels, she mentions that what readers most enjoy is their own remembrance of the experience with the book the first time. VERDICT While readers may not be spellbound by Rose's analysis of classic authors, her understanding of readers and reading is candid and sincere. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/13.]--Joyce Sparrow, Kenneth City, FL

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.