I’d Rather Be Reading by Guinevere De La Mare
Rating: 2 stars
I had such high hopes for this book when I saw it on amazon. The title obviously catches my eye because I’d pretty much always rather be reading! And the picture on the front seems to guarantee the book will be filled with other wonderful bookish art. It’s also just an assumption that this will be a large coffee table type book. After reading reviews I did come out that it’s quite tiny and compact. But I still requested it in a book exchange I recently took part in, hoping it would exceed my expectations. It didn’t.
First of all, there are almost no “essays” in the book. Just a few very short chapters. I loved the beginning because the author seemed to have the same story as me. I also was a huge bookworm as a child. I loved books like crazy – until my AP English class. Just like her, the pretentious discussions and constant analysis was just so much more than I wanted. I liked reading books for enjoyment. I still only like reading books for enjoyment. Anyway, I thought after that first chapter the rest of the book would follow in the same vein. But in a future essay it was all about focusing only on literary fiction and reading the classics. It was basically pointed out that unless a book is a classic work of fiction, it’s not worth reading. I don’t like hearing that! It really turned me off to the rest of the book.
The photos and artwork were just okay. It was certainly interesting, but I would have enjoyed it so much more if they were bigger! I also would have greatly appreciated the title of the work and the artist on the same page. Instead, the artist’s name is just listed at the back of the book.
Overall, I was gravely disappointed by this book. It had the potential to be amazing. Instead it felt like a very rushed and ridiculously simple way to make money. Anybody could have whipped up a book like that. Throw about 70 pictures together (mostly photographs, not actual bookish art like I had hoped) and ask three people to write a two page essay. There could have been hundreds of prints, at least fifty essays! Anyway, it’s fun to thumb through. It took me about half an hour to read in its entirety. But it’s definitely not worth buying.
