A Lifetime of Reading Distilled in Book Lust

It took Nancy Pearl a year to complete Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason (Sasquatch Books, September 2003). But that's just one way of looking at it. "You could also say it's taken me my whole lifetime of reading, while taking one book after another, giving it to someone, and saying, 'You have to read this, it's so good,'" noted Pearl, who is the director of the Washington Center for the Book and the creator of the program "If All of Seattle Read the Same Book."

In Book Lust, the Seattle librarian and former bookseller at the now-defunct Yorktown Alley Bookstore in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has funneled her love affair with books into a passionate and witty reference tome filled with more than 100 thematically intriguing and useful sections. Each section features titles that Pearl has deemed essential. The book's game plan can be fathomed, partly, from glancing at Pearl's own bookcases. "I loved the 'Pawns of History' chapter, for example, which lists books about people caught up in forces greater than they can control, and the 'First Lines to Remember' section because it contains such an eclectic mix," she told BTW. "Companion Reads," meanwhile, deals with books that should be read in conjunction with one another and offers subsections such as "Into the heart of the dark continent…." (listing Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, among others). That chapter was inspired by book clubs at the Seattle Public Library.

And who can resist the "Sex and the Single Reader" section, featuring titillating reads like Kathleen Woodiwiss' Shanna, a book Pearl describes in Book Lust as a "heaving-bosom/swollen-manhood sort of romance novel that my high school boyfriend gave me (which is weird in and of itself)." Also compelling is "A Dickens of a Tale," focusing on titles we'd most compare to books by Charles Dickens. "You have the multitudinous subplots and many wonderfully named characters, and you have to transport yourself back to a somewhat slower time," she explained. "Sometimes I'm in the mood for that, sometimes I'm not."

There's even a section to get you through that wicked hangover ("Lost Weekends"). The book begins with "A … My Name Is Alice," which lists books by authors named Alice, including Alice Adams and Alice Walker. "I once heard Anna Quindlen answer the question of what authors she most enjoyed reading by saying that, basically, she reads 'the Alices,'" Pearl writes.

Book Lust features a fair share of children's titles, too. In "Dinosaur Hunting," she doesn't just list "thick books about big feuds in dinosaur hunting," she told BTW. For youngsters who dig dinosaurs, she mentions The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, a true story of a 19th century British artist who created dinosaur reproductions. Pearl's appreciation for children's literature is no surprise: she began her career as a children's librarian in Detroit. "I wanted to do for children what children's librarians did for me: Open up a world of books," she said.

Despite listing such a plethora of books, Pearl still wakes up in the middle of the night thinking, "I forgot to list a book that should have been in there!" she admitted, while laughing. The "Pawns" section, for example, could have included Marge Piercy's Vida, "a wonderful novel about the 1960s and the radical anti-war movement the Weather Underground, and a book I've read and reread but forgot to include!"

Pearl has obviously read and reread a lot of books -- "98 percent" of the roughly 1,800 titles mentioned in Book Lust, in fact. The works she didn't read, but still recommends, are those she learned about through experts in various fields. "I therefore got those books, skimmed them, and took the experts' word for it," she noted.

Pearl's avid reading has turned her into a well-regarded book reviewer. Besides critiquing for Library Journal and Booklist, she reviews books on a weekly radio program, "The Beat," airing on the Seattle NPR affiliate KUOW. She began reviewing books for the radio station KWGS in Tulsa. "When I moved to Seattle, the program director at KWGS wrote to the program director at KUOW and said, 'You have to have her on live, she has no fear.' That was nice of him to say."

The writer/librarian/on-air-talent is also author of two books for librarians: Now Read This: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction, 1978 - 1998 and Now Read This II: A Guide to Mainstream Fiction, 1990 - 2001 (both Libraries Unlimited). Overall, Pearl feels lucky that her "vocation" and "avocation" fit so well together. "I don't have much of a life outside of reading," she admitted, while laughing again. "I don't particularly cook and I have a very low-maintenance husband, and my children are grown and gone, so basically while other people play croquet or golf or go to football games, I read." --Jeff Perlah