Read, Remember, Recommend - Rachelle Rogers Knight

As most of you know, as a book blogger, you get dozens of review requests each week. You have to pick and choose, otherwise you might just find yourself under a mountain of books, left for dead. When I received a request to review Read, Remember, Recommend, however, I deliberated for about...three seconds. I like books, I like lists, I like making notes and marks in little boxes (big shocker that I am a CPA, huh?). Hold onto your shorts, friends. This is a reading journal for book lovers!

I loved this excerpt in the Introduction:

It's late at night and you've just finished a great book. Ahhhh. What a feeling! The characters are still fresh in your imagination, friends you will keep and think back on from time to time. Questions and thoughts swirl in your mind. Did Holden "catch" Phoebe? In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, is the boy better off with his mother or father? Does Offred get out of Gilead and is she able to find her daughter? Kafka, why a roach? If set in modern times, would Elizabeth's and Mr. Darcy's social classes have helped or hindered their relationship? Was Pi telling the truth about his amazing adventure? As you reflect over the book's ending, a strange panic begins to form in your mind. What's next?

OK, I'll admit, this is where I guffawed. Me? Panic? About what to read next? Not a chance. But still, any fleeting book-related thought that might perchance go through your brain has a special place in this journal.

You want a list of all Pulitzers, National Book Awards, National Book Critics Circle Awards, Hemingway Foundation/PEN Awards, Governor General's Literary Awards, Scotiabank Giller Prizes, Trillium Book Awards, Man Bookers, Costas, Orange Prizes, Miles Franklins, New York Times Best Books of the Year, (and more but I'm starting to run out of breath) BY YEAR, here it is in one place. With little boxes next to each book that say "Own", "Recommend", "To Read" and "Want". Oooh, I want, I want, I want.

There is a tab where you can record books you want to read. A tab for journaling. A tab for books you want to recommend and to whom. A tab where you can keep track of books loaned and books borrowed. A tab of literary references, including websites for all book awards, literary terminology, and RECOMMENDED BOOK BLOGS. Yes you heard me. And many of these book blogs are some of you, my girlfriends. Kathy, Julie, Lisa, Trish, Natasha, Nicole, Amy, Wendy, Dawn...you are in here girls. So what am I? Chopped liver? I guess you know you've made it when you are on the list of recommended blogs! I guess I can aspire to such a thing!

I was so excited when I received this book, I drug it to the book fair and touched it and manically flipped through it (while I was supposed to be working!), giving my adult customers an unsolicited peek at my little treasure. Got a few squeals too, until they found out that no, it wasn't for sale on one of our tables.

So what is not to love? Happiness is curling up with a pencil and a glass of wine and marking up my little boxes!

I'd like to thank Carrie Gellin at Sourcebooks for offering me the opportunity to dig into this little gem!