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My Life with Bob

Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues

Pamela Paul

Picador

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ISBN10: 1250182549
ISBN13: 9781250182548

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256 Pages

$18.00

CA$24.50

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Imagine keeping a record of every book you’ve ever read. What would this reading trajectory say about you? With passion, humor, and insight, the editor of The New York Times Book Review shares the stories that have shaped her life.

Pamela Paul has kept a single book by her side for twenty-eight years—carried throughout high school and college, hauled from Paris to London to Thailand, from job to job, safely packed away and then carefully removed from apartment to house to its current perch on a shelf over her desk—reliable if frayed, anonymous-looking yet deeply personal. This book has a name: Bob.

Bob is Paul’s Book of Books, a journal that records every book she’s ever read, from Sweet Valley High to Anna Karenina, from Catch-22 to Swimming to Cambodia, a journey in reading that reflects her inner life—her fantasies and hopes, her mistakes and missteps, her dreams and her ideas, both half-baked and wholehearted. Her life, in turn, influences the books she chooses, whether for solace or escape, information or sheer entertainment.

But My Life with Bob isn’t really about those books. It’s about the deep and powerful relationship between book and reader. It’s about the way books provide each of us the perspective, courage, companionship, and imperfect self-knowledge to forge our own path. It’s about why we read what we read and how those choices make us who we are. It’s about how we make our own stories.

Reviews

Praise for My Life with Bob

“A delightfully gushing love letter to books—books as a medium that can connect us, transport us and transform us.”The Washington Post

"Bob becomes a memory keeper, not so much of the books . . . as of the personal associations they hold for her, such as the place where she read them or the people she was with at the time. Paul approaches books with tenderness, desire, insecurity, and, always, ambition."The New Yorker

"Pamela Paul recalls the stories that have given shape to her own narrative in her appealingly roving memoir . . . which includes . . . undersung marvels that boldly take measure of the world—and challenge us to write our own story."—Vogue

“A rollicking, intimate expedition through a brilliant booklover’s heart, mind, and life . . . My Life With Bob is a fun, accessible, well-written bookalogue.”The Christian Science Monitor

“A heartwarming reminiscence of the books that reflected and shaped her state of mind at every stage of life.”Harper’s Bazaar

"The ultimate book about reading books . . . an intimate look into [Paul's] interior life and the ways in which the stories she has read have changed her own story."—Buzzfeed

"A smart, beautifully written memoir about the relationship we have with books and how the books we read frame our lives."—PopSugar

“My Life with Bob is a sweet and heady book that casts a serious charm. Our lively and fetching heroine’s journey becomes more thrilling by the page as Pamela Paul perfectly captures the joys of a lifetime devoted to books, as well as the attendant pressure, doubt, and insecurity.”—Maria Semple

"Pamela Paul's My Life With Bob is an absorbing, delightful amalgam—it's a recommended reading list, a personal reflection, and a paean to reading."—Meg Wolitzer

"Intelligent, unique, and wise, Paul's book not only remembers a life lived among and influenced by books. It also reveals how the most interesting stories exist less as words printed on pages and more as 'stories that lie between book and reader.' A thoughtfully engaging memoir of a life in books."Kirkus Reviews

“Paul is inspired to question why we read, how we read, what we read, and how reading helps us create our own narratives. Readers will be drawn to this witty and authentic tribute to the extraordinary power of books.”Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Reviews from Goodreads

About the author

Pamela Paul

Pamela Paul is the editor of The New York Times Book Review and oversees books coverage at The New York Times. She is also the host of the weekly podcast, Inside The New York Times Book Review. Her books include My Life with Bob, By the Book, Parenting, Inc., Pornified, and The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony. Prior to joining the Times, she was a contributor to Time magazine and The Economist; her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Slate, and Vogue.

Earl Wilson / The New York Times

New York Times By the Book