The Writer's Library

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S THE WRITER'S LIBRARY ABOUT?
I'm just going to copy and paste from the Publisher's site here:

Before Jennifer Egan, Louise Erdrich, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Jonathan Lethem became revered authors, they were readers. In this ebullient book, America's favorite librarian Nancy Pearl and noted-playwright Jeff Schwager interview a diverse range of America's most notable and influential writers about the books that shaped them and inspired them to leave their own literary mark.

The Writer's Library is a revelatory exploration of the studies, libraries, and bookstores of today's favorite authors—the creative artists whose imagination and sublime talent make America's literary scene the wonderful, dynamic world it is. A love letter to books and a celebration of wordsmiths, The Writer's Library is a treasure for anyone who has been moved by the written word.

THE WRITER'S LIBRARY

Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager interview a wide variety of America's best writers about the books that made them who they are.

I love to get suggestions about good books, and who better to suggest books than writers of good books?

This was a library copy, but I liked it so much that I decided to get my own copy of it.

From the interview with Amor Towles, in which he spoke about reading a book called Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? by Harold Bloom:
“Bloom's book had a big effect on me. I closed it thinking: I'm turning forty. If I live to eighty and read one book a month carefully—where I underline and reflect upon what I've read and write down my thoughts—that means I've got just 480 books left! Yet I had just spent a year reading a series of contemporary novels that didn't make a mark on me. So I decided that I had to do something different. I decided to focus on reading books that were so accomplished, so rich, you would benefit from reading them at the age of twenty and forty and sixty and eighty.”