Joan Austen's Reviews > My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues

This memoir by Pamela Paul about how reading shapes and defines our lives, is a delightful read. Flawed Heroine keeps Book of Books – Plot Ensues - a cover like that could not fail to catch the eye of readers everywhere. Like most bookworms being forever in pursuit of the next good read, I am always curious about what other people are reading. I must have something on reserve or I get edgy. Her story about being trapped in a yurt on the Chinese silk road in a snowstorm with no reading material reminded me of being stuck on the island of Tucks and Caicos (long before it was developed), for a whole week with five bad books and no shopping anywhere, except a strip mall of offshore storefronts and one tacky souvenir shop. I must confess I am not familiar with the author, as being Canadian I tend to haunt the Chapters bestseller lists, Heather’s Pick’s and/or the Globe and Mail. No one gets to be the editor of the New York Times Book Review unless they are a very good writer, so her prose is lovely, and the way she describes how the books influenced her life and vice versa is captivating. I could relate to the various stages of her reading life, but have only kept my own Bob for the past ten years….how I wish I had started earlier. Not being an English lit major, I was not familiar with some of her choices, nor her recommendations, but I enjoyed the book so much it didn’t matter. (Favourite quote: I had swiftly fallen from the Austenian security of destined couple to the Whartonian disgrace of divorcee).