My Life with Bob

“An engaging and . . . funny memoir. . . . A delightfully gushing love letter to books” by the former editor of The New York Times Book Review (Washington Post).

People Pick • O Magazine Title to Pick Up Now • Vanity Fair Hot Type • Glamour New Book You’re Guaranteed to Love This Summer • LitHub.com Best Book about Books • Buzzfeed Book You Need to Read This Summer • Seattle Times Book for Summer Reading

Pamela Paul has kept a single book by her side for twenty-eight years—carried throughout high school and college, hauled from Paris to London to Thailand, from job to job, safely packed away and then carefully removed from apartment to house to its current perch on a shelf over her desk. Reliable if frayed, anonymous-looking yet deeply personal, this book has a name: Bob.

Bob is Paul’s Book of Books, a journal that records every book she’s ever read, from the Sweet Valley High series to Anna Karenina, from Catch-22 to Swimming to Cambodia, a journey in reading that reflects her inner life—her fantasies and hopes, her mistakes and missteps, her dreams and her ideas, both half-baked and wholehearted. Her life, in turn, influences the books she chooses, whether for solace or escape, information or sheer entertainment.

But My Life with Bob isn’t really about those books. It’s about the deep and powerful relationship between book and reader. It’s about the way books provide each of us the perspective, courage, companionship, and imperfect self-knowledge to forge our own path. It’s about why we read what we read and how those choices make us who we are. It’s about how we make our own stories.

“[Pamela Paul] is reflective, open, and at times achingly funny. My Life with Bob is the book that she was put on this earth to write.” —The Economist

“[An] appealingly roving memoir . . . which includes . . . undersung marvels that boldly take measure of the world—and challenge us to write our own story.” —Vogue

“The ultimate book about reading books.” —BuzzFeed