Anne Bogel’s I’d Rather Be Reading is aptly subtitled The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life. Anne is the blogger behind Modern Mrs. Darcy, where books and reading are among her primary topics.

In this book Anne covers nearly every aspect of being an avid reader communicating with other avid readers.

Since she writes so much about books, people sometimes feel compelled to divulge their guilty reading secrets: hating books that everyone else loves, never having gotten around to reading a well-loved classic, having books on their shelves for decades that they haven’t read yet.

She discusses the books that we seem to come across at just the right time, even though we picked them up randomly, the books that “hooked” us into lifelong readership, the puzzling love for books that make us cry, the charm of libraries and bookstore, books that we keep because they were given to us or remind us of friends, how reading enhances real-life experiences, “bookworm problems” like never having enough storage space for books or needing to stop just at the best part of a book to go to work  or pick up a child from school, the different types of readers we are at different stages of life, the discoveries made in an author’s extra notes (acknowledgements, introductions, afterwords), and much more. Along the way she references a plethora of books she’s read.

Maybe because I am only an occasional visitor rather than a regular follower of Anne’s blog, I didn’t have the same sense of conspiratorial camaraderie I might have had in discussing some of these same topics with friends. But I enjoyed plenty of head-nodding and “me, too!” moments, which, along with Anne’s breezy style, made this book a pleasant read.

(Sharing with Carole’s Books You Loved)