Recommended reading lists are predicated on the recommender's personal likes and dislikes, quirks and foibles...as it should be. After all, a computer program can recommend books based on your buying/browsing trends, but it can't give you an emotional argument as to why you should bother giving a certain book a chance. Which is why I love reading recommended-reading books, not because I don't already have a 3-ring binder full of lists, book review pages, and book club catalogs, all with starred, underlined, and highlighted entries, but because I know the recommendations of others will expose me to books and authors to which I would've otherwise been oblivious.

Nancy Pearl's book is definitely full of a diverse, eclectic, one might say eccentric, mix of books, organized into her own creative categories. While she does introduce many new titles in each category, she has a tendency to overlap them quite often. (The Prince of Tides comes to mind as the worst offender.) I realize that almost every book can fit into multiple categories, especially those as unique as Pearl's, but I would think, considering her job as a librarian, she could come up with new recommendations for each subject, or at least repeat a title no more than twice. However, I do love her lists and she has many of them: lists of a series (with titles in chronological order), lists of an author's body of work, even lists of books to be read together. The only other quibble I have is some of the authors she's left out. Granted, she states quite clearly, both in the introduction and throughout the book, that she's aware she will leave out some books and authors due to either space constraints or just plain forgetfulness, but there are some oversights, which aren't even mentioned in her follow-up More Book Lust, that I can't get over: Stephen Hawking, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Jane Yolen, all of whom have contributed to the written word quite successfully and powerfully. To not mention them is a grave oversight...but that's just my opinion.

With such a diverse list of titles, I can't say I'll ever be in the mood to read many or even most of them (although I've read some of the books listed, and not just the familiar ones foisted upon unsuspecting high school English students--yes, I'm looking at you, Messrs. Dickens, Tolkein, and James). However, I realize that in order to become a well-rounded reader, and human being, I need to break out of my comfort zone every once in a while. When that time comes, I'll probably turn to Book Lust and More Book Lust to begin my journey.