Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Oct 15, 2011

Ceridwen rated it:

I really don't know how to classify this book. It's like literary fiction...with pictures! The images aren't robust and integral enough to make it a full throated graphic novel - nor is it long enough - so graphic short story? The story itself is too light to be a short story with any depth, just to mix my metaphors of measurement. And it's not in comic format, more the shape, size and texture of a children's book, which lead to some awkwardness when I was bitching about this book to my husband, More...

17 comments like (27 people liked it)

Apr 17, 2011

Eva rated it:

This graphic novel is AWESOME! Of course, I both work in a library and am an avid reader, so I may be biased. [return]Niffenegger's main character, Alexandra runs across the title bookmobile during a late night/early morning walk. When she enters the bookmobile, its shelves are crammed with books she has read. The librarian, Mr. Openshaw, then tells her that it is "her" bookmobile, and it carries only what she has read. Very cool![return]She is ushered out of the bookmobile as dawn app More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 11, 2012

Ubalstecha rated it:

While out walking one night, Alexandra comes across a bookmobile that is full of every book that she has ever read. This library of Alexandra fascinates her, and after she leaves, she spends years looking for it again. Alexandra begins to isolate herself, becoming obsessed with reading, wanting to impress the librarian with her choices. Eventually she becomes a librarian herself, and each time she encounters the library she is amazed at how many books it contains.

This is a beautif More...

0 comments like

Feb 03, 2012

Violet rated it:

I was excited when I saw a graphic novel written by Audrey Niffenegger at the library, so I immediately checked it out. Unfortunately I was really disappointed with the book. The graphics were normal, not bad , but nothing to talk about either.

The Night Bookmobile is about a young woman who finds a night bookmobile when roaming the streets one night after having a fight with her husband. She is surprised to find all the books that she has ever read in her life in the bookmobile. I wont More...

0 comments like

Jan 19, 2012

Ann rated it:

A woman, walking the 3AM streets of Chicago after a fight with her boyfriend, encounters a parked, lit-up Winnebago. She's welcomed on board by the driver, a scholarly looking gentleman who is the librarian for the Night Bookmobile. On the shelves of the bookmobile she discovers every book she's ever read, including her childhood diary.

After her initial encounter with the night bookmobile, the woman is driven to find it again, but the bookmobile proves elusive. This fantasy tale is a More...

0 comments like

Dec 30, 2011

Angela rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Aug 03, 2011

Kris rated it:

Very quick read. Surreal is best word to describe; found it enjoyable & haunting because of the subject matter--life of reading--and becoming consumed by it, which we can. In Niffenegger's "After Words" section, she wrote, "When I began writing The Night Bookmobile, it was a story about a woman's secret life as a reader. As I worked it also became a story about the claims that books place on their readers, the imbalance between our inner and outer lives, a cautionary tale of th More...

0 comments like

Jul 26, 2011

Kat rated it:

I read a review last Christmas which explained that the night bookmobile was a mobile library where everything you have ever read was housed, from books and newspapers to cereal packets and road signs and from that moment on, I knew I had to find it.

Looking in real-life bookshops however, failed to produce any results because what the inspiring little review didn't tell me, was that The Night Bookmobile is in fact a graphic novel.

I'm not normally a fan of graphic novels but More...

0 comments like

Jul 25, 2011

Melanti rated it:

The premise reminded me, very vaguely, of something that Charles de Lint might have written. There's a definite charm to the idea - a roving bookmobile that shows up only when you're not expecting it and contains everything you've ever read - right down to the backs of cereal boxes! What avid reader wouldn't want to browse around a collection like that? I know I smile when I encounter an old favorite in a place I don't expect it to be.

But the premise was about all I truly enjoyed. More...

0 comments like

Jul 12, 2011

Sarah rated it:

In the wee hours of a Chicago morning, Alexandra stumbles upon a bookmobile that houses her entire reading life, and she becomes obsessed with gaining access to these collective memories. Unfortunately for her, the visits to the Night Bookmobile and librarian Mr. Openshaw are fleeting and inconsistent; Alexandra pursues a career as a librarian in an attempt to fill the void.

Niffenegger's illustrations are relatively simple, but expressive. I particularly enjoyed how alive the book be More...

1 comment like

Jun 08, 2011

Laurel rated it:

Alexandra first sees the Night Bookmobile at four in the morning, when she's been out walking after a fight with her boyfriend. It contains every book she's ever read, from Maurice Sendak's Higglety Pigglety Pop!: Or There Must Be More to Life to Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Egypt Game, from Jim Harrison's The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand to Betty Crocker's Cookbook. It also contains her diary, all the magazines she's read, and the back of every cereal box she's looked at o More...

0 comments like

May 03, 2011

BeguileThySorrow... rated it:

I picked this one up because it's about a library and I saw the nice blurb by Neil Gaiman on back. Unfortunately I didn't find it at all to be a story "perfectly told". The Night Bookmobile is the first of a larger work being titled The Library, as explained by the author in the "after words". Because of this I feel it's possible that my understanding of the story is in fact out of context until I read the completed book. But since it is published here as a single book, I als More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Mar 31, 2011

Wordwizard rated it:

I really, really loved the premise of this short graphic novel: on a walk at 4:00 in the morning, a young woman finds a mysterious trailer full of all the books she has ever read. It is driven by a mysterious man who claims to be a librarian of the "Night Bookmobile," open from dusk to dawn. Finding this bookmobile alters her life--she sees a portrait of herself as a reader, and it drives her to read more and more, and eventually becomes a librarian (of a more mundane sort) herself.
More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 18, 2011

christa rated it:

Audrey Niffenegger has a good thing going on with her lobes. In her graphic novel "The Night Bookmobile" -- which walks like a children's book, but certainly doesn't talk like one, Alexandra goes out for a walk in the streets of Chicago in the middle of the night. She has recently fought with her boyfriend Richard, a ponytailed lover with no time for make believe. She finds a bookmobile blasting Bob Marley and gives the driver a little peek as she walks past.

Robert Openshaw g More...

0 comments like

Mar 15, 2011

Mollie Katie rated it:

For this Fearless Friday, I’m venturing into a genre I don’t ordinarily read: the graphic novel. I love art, I love all things visual, how they provoke me. But I think I’ve always preferred the written word over the illustrated version because the worlds I imagined in my head were always superior. My only previous experience in this genre is with Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons…unless you count a minor obsession with Wonder Woman’s representation in comics over the years (the creator’s wif More...

0 comments like

Mar 08, 2011

Judith rated it:

The Night Bookmobile is a short graphic novel about a woman named Alexandra who one night, after arguing with her boyfriend, goes for a walk on a quiet Chicago street. During her walk she comes across an old Winnebago which holds a library and a driver/librarian named Robert. Robert, like every good librarian, invites Alexandra to browse the shelves. However, Alexandra quickly realizes that the collection consists of every book she has ever read. She is frightened at first but later becomes o More...

0 comments like

Feb 23, 2011

Autumn rated it:

I definitely expected something better here. I have no idea what the author wants me to come away with here. It's like the protagonist loved rediscovering all the books, magazines, periodicals, etc. she had ever read, but then later felt she had wasted all of her time reading, and thought of everything she had "given up" for reading. I, however, didn't see that at all, since she got a career and joy out of her passion for books, and found joy in her ever-expanding library. Weird and co More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2011

Hollowspine rated it:

Contrary to others I didn't find this to be as sad a read as it could have been. I found that Alexandra a bit not depressed, though she seemed to lead a very solitary life, but perhaps a bit lost. I think that she found what she really wanted that night she had an argument with her lover, but then lost it as quickly as dawn rises. Even after that lone encounter her life took a drastic change. She started reading with someone else in mind, imagining her library growing and the responses she w More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 10, 2011

Joanna rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 07, 2011

Spoonbridge rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 05, 2011

Lacey rated it:

Our library director urged everyone to read this book, so I read it during a slow time at the library. Although it's technically a graphic novel, the way the story is laid out is more like a picture book, with large chunks of expository text that are not integrated into the artwork. At first this was kind of a turn-off to me, and I didn't think the layout with it looked that great a lot of the time. But the story, about a woman who gets obsessed with finding a mysterious night bookmobile that co More...

5 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2011

nicole rated it:

I heard about this book from Ms. Niffenegger herself at ALA Annual last June. I listed this as the top book I was waiting for, and I wasn't disappointed, although I was somewhat disappointed.

We -- the bookish -- long for a story like this to be true. Last night, my boyfriend asked when it was that I became a reader. And I honestly don't know. I have a vague memory of the first book I read all on my own, something about a teddy bear picnic, but it's pretty much a blurry streak of tur More...

0 comments like

Dec 25, 2010

Pamela rated it:

"Have you ever found your heart's desire and then lost it? I had seen myself, a portrait of myself as a reader. My childhood: hours spent in airless classrooms, days home sick from school reading Nancy Drew, forbidden books read secretly late at night...Here was A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman, which I remembered reading in a coffee shop while waiting for a blind date who never showed up."

At 4AM, wandering the deserted Chicago streets after a fight with her boyfriend, L More...

0 comments like

Dec 06, 2010

Merrill rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2010

Dawn rated it:

WOW. Imaginative and moving and wonderful and creepy. I always imagined that our individual bibliographies were unique identifiers, like our fingerprints. Audrey Niffenegger depicts them as personal bookmobiles. I hope mine looks like the Partridge Family bus, and that orange drink is served instead of tea.

One of the most emotional moments in short narrative is when Alexandra contemplates all that she "had given up for reading." This line reminds avid readers that there are i More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 03, 2010

Claire rated it:

Alexandra (Lexi) discovers a bookmobile one night after a fight with her boyfriend. She then finds that the bookmobile has housed every book she has ever read, including pamphlets, her diary, and even cereal boxes. At dawn, the bookmobile drives away and Lexi continues looking for it night after night for the rest of her life, only finding it occasionally in times of crisis or change. She often asks to become a librarian there and is refused. Eventually she discovers the twist that allows he More...

0 comments like

Oct 31, 2010

Andy rated it:

I hadn't heard of this at all until stumbling upon a pile of copies in a book store. I was intrigued enough to pick it up and Neil Gaiman's quote on the back (despite his known bias for Niffenegger's work) sold it.

The story is enchantingly simple yet devastating in execution. It's haunting resulting in rapid page turning, gradually working on your mind until sucker punching you near the end with a blinding development (which had me go back and read the page again).

I w More...

0 comments like

Oct 29, 2010

Sarah-Greenbeanteenqueen rated it:

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

The Night Bookmobile is hauntingly good. If you're an avid reader and a book lover, you'll find yourself in Alexandra.

The book is fairly short and the illustrations aren't always superb, but the story is what sells this book and if you are a booklover, know booklovers, or are a librarian, you'll want to pick up a copy of this book.

The Night Bookmobile is a love story to books from a reader. How do books affect our lives? What do they say a More...

0 comments like

Oct 29, 2010

Jennifer rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 30, 2010

Kristen rated it:

I'm probably the only librarian in the U.S. who hasn't read The Time Traveler's Wife so this is my first experience with Niffenegger and libraries. And I did enjoy it. Hadn't realized prior to purchase that she was also the artist, and it's fairly unpolished zine-type art. But it doesn't usually distract from the story. The speech bubbles, on the other hand, could have been handled better, and I went back and forth on whether there should have been actual lettering rather than print font. Then a More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

reviews