Three people simultaneously bought me Marilyn Johnson’s previous book, This Book Is Overdue!, as I graduated from library school. (Possibly they are reading this now – sorry! I don’t even remember who they were.) I didn’t make it even halfway through. Was it uninspiring, or was it I who was uninspired? worn out from study? It’s a fine question about the intersection of book, reader, time and place; a good reading experience requires a happy meeting of all four. Maybe I would love the book now.
I’m rather encouraged to try again. The first pages of Johnson’s latest work, Lives in Ruins, reference librarians immediately – and beer too, twice in three pages; a funny story about the apocalypse is credited to a graduate student, and during an economic depression, “Dublin was running, as far as I could tell, on what spilled out of the pockets of Brits during their bachelor parties.” Johnson is self-deprecating and irreverent, and also serious and passionate about her subject (in this case, archaeologists). What’s not to love?
May have to try This Book Is Overdue! again. Perhaps three well-meaning graduation present givers were right after all.
Filed under: musings | Tagged: librarians, personal |
pagesofjulia 
When you’re deeply immersed in something, sometimes people assume that you’d enjoy reading a novel about it also, but the reality is often you’d much prefer to read a novel about something entirely different.
When I was a struggling musician, people recommended the movie The Commitments, which is about struggling musicians. That was the last thing I wanted to see a movie about.
I can definitely understand that!! I don’t recall that it was the librarian focus that turned me off; but I’m not quite sure what did…