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thrscldrn's review against another edition
5.0
This book owned up to its title of being "The Book That Changed My Life". This book is not mine, it was my late grandfather's. I'm not even sure if he finished it before he'd gone, but I'm glad I finished it. Somehow it created a connection not only to the contributors of the book but to its previous reader, my Tatay. It's not only informative and insightful but also a great book for people who love reading. It's a book that lets authors talk about the books that made them who they are now; that's just WOW. I came to love books more after reading this and I know that in a few years, when I read this again, I'll still find something new in it that would amze me because that's just how magical books are.
shareen17's review against another edition
4.0
I think anyone that enjoys looking at this website would enjoy the essays in this book. It's always interesting to find out why a book is significant to a person, and added to this, these essays are written by people talented at writing. I'm going to have to go through this book a second time to glean a list of reading suggestions. I love these ending lines from Frank McCourt's essay on Henry VIII: "I don't know what it means and I don't care because it's Shakespeare and it's like having jewels in my mouth when I say the words. If I had a whole book of Shakespeare they could keep me in the hospital for a year."
christinajcraig's review against another edition
5.0
I totally love! Don't read if you don't want to become besotted with the quantity of wonderful literature there is for you to read. I'm not even overwhelmed! I'm excited! My Goodreads is blowing up!
oregon_small_fry's review against another edition
2.0
This book fell flat for me- they were too short. Some felt like elongated tweets (even though this was written in the early 00's- which as a side note, it is interesting that there seems to have been a shift in how we write, even in that short of time period!), a lot of the authors didn't really get into the depth of how or why the book changed their life.
cool premise.
cool premise.
cozylittlebrownhouse's review against another edition
2.0
I was completely excited about this book because I love reading books about what other books people really love. (How is that for a lame intro to my review?) The fact that the book reveals authors' favorite reads only made it more enticing. However, as well-read as I am (or considered myself to be) I have not heard of many of the authors in this collection, nor have I heard of many of the books they selected. Not that I expected to read 71 essays about Salinger, Rand, or Lee, but still. I was kind of disappointed, and to be frank, even kind of bored.
bakudreamer's review against another edition
2.0
Harold Bloom says he's read ' Little , Big ' dozens of times.
rclairel's review
3.0
Two stars for a meh amount of enjoyment but a third for the books I added to my to-read list. I think I expected the short essays in this little paperback to be poignant and beautiful; they are written mostly by professional writers, after all. As it turns out, writers seem to have just as much trouble expressing how deeply a book as affected them as the rest of us mere readers do. There were a few reviews that made me smile - but that only occurred because they were about books that I love, too, and there's nothing so fun as hearing someone else gush about something you're obsessed with as well. One solitary line struck me with the poignancy I was expecting in every review; Anne Perry wrote of G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who was Thursday, "It makes me feel wonderfully unique, and at the same time part of all mankind." But despite all my griping about what this book was not, I did finish with at least a dozen dog-eared pages, where authors' less-than-dust-jacket-worthy descriptions were still enough to pique my interest in their favorite books. I guess if you're desperate for things to read, you could check this book out at the library (don't bother to buy it). But honestly, there's too many books and too little time already. Also, a question I wondered: how diverse was the group of authors interviewed for this book? Because after a while, I started to wonder if they were all or almost all white.
carka88's review
4.0
Reading this means my to-read list will grow even longer, but I was interested to read about the books that inspired writers.