Bibliophile, Jane Mount 2018

I LOVED THIS BOOK—lists of books, lists of libraries, lists of book shops, quizzes about foods and fictional planets, and reading recommendations from librarians, authors, publishers and just plain readers, and all of this brilliantly illustrated by Mount, the artist behind one of my all time favorite books and the inspiration for BookMarks home page photograph, The Ideal Bookshelf.  Mount is a talented artist whose specialty is depicting the spines of book covers, painting the covers in bright colors and hand-printing the titles and authors in a casual readable ‘print’.  In addition, in Bibliophile, she wields her pencil to make sketches of authors whose books are depicted in uneven stacks as they might appear on your nightstand or desk.  The 48 categories include Poetry, Essays, Brit Lit from the 19th C, Novels of the early 1900’s, cookbooks, short stories, memoirs, and many more.  In addition to the stack of her ‘ideal bookshelf’ for each category, there are brief reviews of a handful from each stack and a list of “More” titles for that category.  Though tempted, I did not count up the number of books listed but I’m estimating it at well over 500.  It was gratifying to see how many I have managed to read and humbling to see how many I have never heard of let alone read.  This book could keep me in recommendations for the rest of my life!  I loved the drawings and descriptions of Beloved Bookstores from Paris to L.A. (where we visited The Last Bookstore in March), from Salt Lake City (where we visited The King’s English Bookshop last year) to Ely, UK.  I also loved the drawings and descriptions of beautiful libraries around the world from Seattle to China and of writing rooms from Virginia Woolf’s to George Bernard Shaw’s.  This is a book well worth buying and keeping handy for quiet evenings of browsing and list making.  Fantastic!