Friends, I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life is a visually beautiful book which is also a  thoughtful and endearing memoir written

by one who is completely in love with books. Author Anne Bogel, moderator of a  terrific website called Modern Mrs. Darcy https://modernmrsdarcy.com/ and who gives us the thoroughly convivial podcast “What Should I Read Next?”, has produced a volume that is completely irresistible to book enthusiasts. It is 100% book-nip. The first chapter, “Confess Your Literary Sins,” siphons you directly into its pages by revealing the reading indiscretions of bookworms both professional and amateur. This chapter is very, very funny, and makes one’s own reading foibles much more bearable.

Another excellent chapter is “Keep Reading.” This section is about the acknowledgments which are at the end of most books and which many (most?) readers skip entirely. I think that after you read this chapter your interest in a book’s acknowledgments pages will be heightened considerably.

In the chapter “The Books Next Door,” Bogle describes what it meant to her and her very young family to live adjacent to a library. Anne describes their deep attachment to the library, its people, books, and services, with so much heart that if I ever move again I am going to make it a requirement for my new home to be walking distance from a library.

There is plenty to enjoy about “I’d Rather Be Reading,” but what I appreciate most is that, in some C.S. Lewis-ian way, it gives us bibliophiles who are a little shy about our life-long obsession permission to admit that we, like Anne Bogel, are incurably smitten with books.