I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf
Ratings28
Average rating3.5
A look at the culture and fanaticism of book lovers, from beloved New York Times illustrator Grant Snider It's no secret, but we are judged by our bookshelves. We learn to read at an early age, and as we grow older we shed our beloved books for new ones. But some of us surround ourselves with books. We collect them, decorate with them, are inspired by them, and treat our books as sacred objects. In this lighthearted collection of one- and two-page comics, writer-artist Grant Snider explores bookishness in all its forms, and the love of writing and reading, building on the beloved literary comics featured on his website, Incidental Comics. With a striking package including a die-cut cover, I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf is the perfect gift for bookworms of all ages.
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[7.5 stars ⭐️.] It was weirdly a nice book, some of it was about books and some of it was about writing, though I expected all of it to be about books (given the title.)
A tender love story. Intimate vignettes from relationships that all of us here will recognize because we've been or are currently involved in them. Snider captures the rewards, the satisfaction, the messiness and conflict and promise and obsession and oh-yeah-baby bliss that comprises our love affair with reading.
But... that's the first half only. The second half—and I was not expecting this—reflected on the challenges and rewards of writing. That's a world alien to me, not the comfortably recognizable one of a reader, so I felt awkward with those: like being with a new lover, one you click with, who, after you're feeling the connection, shyly brings up a kink they have... and before you know it the kink just takes over. I try to be GGG. I did my best to embrace the shift in the book, to appreciate it as insightful (which it is) and poignant and funny (which it very well may be, to other writers) ... but I just don't share that kink. I am eversothankful for those who do, for their gift of creating and their hard work, and for this small unexpected window into their world; I just can't connect with it.
Should I live that long, Goodreads will feature this book prominently in my 2021 Year In Books page: my first review of the year. That thought makes me happy. It was a sweet way to open the new year.
Started off very strong as an ode to books and reading, then trailed into a “writing is hard” complaint. Good enough, though, that I'll look into his other stuff.
(Side note to all writers: yes, writing is hard. But so are many, many, many other jobs, most of them harder than writing. Nobody cares about how hard writing is, except maybe other writers who write about how hard writing is.)
