I was directed to this book when it was quoted in The Book on the Bookshelf. It leaves me conflicted. On one hand, my conclusion when I finished was I need to get my own copy. It was a fabulous journey through a variety of attitudes towards books. However, it was also frustrating--things were referenced in text but not shown in the photos. The people weighed very heavily to the arty city type--artits or decorators and such in NYC and such--where were the engineers? the mid-town folks (and not as one of their houses). The organization was interesting--I read through the first few and decided my inability to make my shelves look nice was simply inherent to bookshelves, as all of theirs were even worse. But later chapters had people with more presentable looking books.

The text was, honeslty, more interesting than the photos. The photos were nice, but they didn't always give as good a feel of the library as the text did--too much on the art style, to little on the topic? That is not quite fair to the text--the text stands on its own quite fine, the only problems being when it references something as if it was in a photo...and it isn't. Well written and fun with good quotes and glimpses into the motivation and feeling of the various libraries.

My favorite parts, though, were the short trips to bookstores and unique libraries (mountain climbing!). They were the most unique and fun and little bits. An entire book of them would be too much, but as little palate cleansers between more deep dives into the thoughts around books--they were delightful to come across, and I am very glad she included them.