Books for Living: a reader's guide to life - Hardcover

a life-enhancing celebration of the power of books and reading, very much in the vein of Tuesdays with Morrie (Independent)

"Good books often answer questions you dind't even known you wanted to ask" is a sentiment with which all avid readers will agree (Irish Times)

I very much enjoyed it . . . inspiring and charming . . . Books, to Schwalbe, are our last great hope to keep us from spiralling into the abyss. It's an old-fashioned thesis-that this ancient medium can save civilization-but I happen to agree. Books build compassion, they inspire reform. They remain, Schwalbe writes, 'one of the strongest bulwarks we have against tyranny.' And man, do we need bulwarks right now. Lots of bulwarks . . . Read Schwalbe's book. (A.J. Jacobs, The New York Times)

Schwalbe's book challenges the notion of reading-on-the-run. It does not offer bullet-pointed highlights so that you can dip in, find the solution and emerge thinking 'There, I've done Copperfield'. Schwalbe expects the readers to read. His own observations are certainly not the fruit of skim-reading... One of the key elements of Books for Living [is] clear: the boundary between our reading and our lives is often so porous. (Times Literary Supplement)

Instead of trying to dust off some forgotten tome and convince us of its value, [Schwalbe] focuses on its pressing relevance at some critical juncture in his life. He isn't arguing - and certainly not shilling - on behalf of a book or author; he's passing on his own experience and leaving us to identify with it or not. Of course we do identify with it, typically, in large part because Schwalbe presents himself so convincingly as an Everyman. He doesn't pretend, or even aspire, to the scholarly expertise of Denby and Dirda, or to Gottlieb's breezy insider status. He conveys this humility with his easygoing, egalitarian tone and his high-low eclecticism, which ranges from Homer's The Odyssey and Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener to E.B. White's Stuart Little and Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train....Books for Living is [a] gift, and one that keeps giving. (USA Today)

Moving... Schwalbe truly shines... It should convince even reluctant readers to pick up a book. (Boston Globe)

Each chapter about a beloved book-Stuart Little, David Copperfield, Song of Solomon, Bird by Bird-is 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 (Booklist *starred review*)

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. (Publishers Weekly *starred review*)

Schwalbe's '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.... In an age when the number of readers is declining, a delightful book like this might just snare a few new recruits. (Kirkus Reviews)

A sweet and utterly restorative series of vignettes about how books - the right books, at the right times - can not only deepen a life but save it. (The Christian Science Monitor)