{REVIEW} JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS LOVER by LAUREN LETO

Series: Stand alone
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Publication Date: 10/2/12
Format: Paperback
Pages: 269
Source: Received from publisher for review.

Lauren Leto, humor blogger and co-author of Texts from Last Night, now offers a fascinating field guide to the hearts and minds of readers everywhere. Judging a Book by Its Lover is like a literary Sh*t My Dad Says--an unrelentingly witty and delightfully irreverent guide to the intricate world of passionate literary debate, at once skewering and celebrating great writers, from Dostoevsky to Ayn Rand to Jonathan Franzen, and all the people who read them. This provocative, smart, and addictively funny tome arose out of Leto's popular "book porn" blog posts, and it will delight and outrage literature fans, readers of Stuff White People Like and I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar--people obsessed with literary culture and people fed up with literary culture--in equal measure.

Judging A Book By Its Lover is your one-stop shop for all topics regarding books and the people who love them. Author Lauren Leto offers snarky, usually spot-on, sometimes condescending and always funny observations on a wide-range of topics, including:

• Bookshelf of the Vanities - bookshelf presentations & the people behind them.
• Ten Rules for Bookstore Hookups
• Rules of Book Club - ohhh, this was so snarky and she nailed it.
• Fan Letter - snarky pleas to fans of writers such as Ayn Rand -YES!, Proust, and Vonnegut.
• Your Moveable Feast - an imaginary scenario of a meal with Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others.
• How to Write Like Any Author - so snarky, and funny.
• What Your Child Will Grow Up to Be.... - based on their favorite book, I think my kids will be okay.
• Stereotyping People By Their Favorite Author - this section was very hit or miss, more miss in my opinion. Funny, though.
• How to Fake It - a guide to faking your way through discussion of some of the most prolific books
• A Gift Guide...-a guide to gift-giving for the important people in your life. I now know what to give my mother-in-law for Christmas. Hooray.
• Twitter-Sized Reviews of Memoirs - funny, snarky tweets that review memoirs
• Book Critic's Bag of Tricks - Watch out guys.This gave me tons of new, pretentious words for my reviews.
• How to Succeed in Classifying Fiction - Gah, I still don't get it.

Besides the fun commentary on books and readers, Leto offers heartfelt stories on the effect books have had on her life. She also gives a great argument for the importance of print books.

Judging a Book By Its Lover was definitely a fun read for me. And you can bet I will be using it as a personal guide for future bookish judginess.


Favorite Quote:

   "Loving young adult novels well past adolescence isn't a sign of stunted maturity or intelligence. The most important thing about reading is not the level of sophistication of the books on your shelf. There is no prerequisite reading regimen for being a bookworm."  (pg. 8)


You can purchase Judging a Book at:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository