This is a nice book sharing how the author dealt with a terribly family tragedy. Unfortunately there are many parts where it is a list with brief synopsis of the book plot. The most interesting part was hearing about her career.
I have not read Retzenbrink's first book so am not emotionally engaged with her as a human being.
There are plenty of people who have had interesting careers; and whilst it was a sweet book, it wasn't my best read of the year.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When I picked up this book I was a little worried as there are many books about reading available, many of which I've read. I shouldn't have been worried though, peeking into someone else's reading journey is delightful and deeply comforting. Though not revolutionary this book fulfilled my curiosity about the reading journey of others and made me feel seen.

I couldn't sleep so I stayed up all night and read this straight through from start to finish. This memoir of a life as a reader, bookseller and writer made me feel I was listening to an old friend.

Cathy Rentzenbrink gives great insight into her life as a reader; how books have shaped her, helped her through difficult times, provided solace, escapism and allowed her to forge connections with strangers.

The anecdotes about the joys (being of use and sharing your passion) and the lowpoints of working as a bookseller are very recognisable.

The sections about Rentzenbrink's bond with her dad and his progression to becoming literate and enjoying reading, and the way that impacts on her decision to work with Quick Reads is extremely moving.

I wasn't sure this could live up to The Last Act of Love but it does. Rentzenbrink seems to be capable of taking any subject and conveying it with honesty and empathy and passion. I'm eager to reread many old favourites now.

Writers writing about reading can often leave me feeling inferior, with references to high-brow tomes and impenetrable classics. Reading Dear Reader is like chatting to a good friend about your favourite books. I finished with a list of books I will certainly seek out and ones I have already read and loved but can’t wait to return to. Delightful!

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

There are several books on the market that share a reader's view of reading and the books that shaped their life. I enjoyed this more than many of them. I felt the author had linked her personal story well with her reading history which was broad containing something for everyone. Certainly as a fellow Brit my early reader featured many of the books she talks about. I am not sure how an American picking up this novel will relate to books such as Mallory towers and St Clare series but there is Anne of Green gable to whet their appetite.

Reading this was an enjoyable interlude but it isnt the type of book that really draws the reader in. It is very personal and subjective - hence my 3 star rating

You know when you meet a stranger and you find you’ve something in common that you’re both passionate about and before you know it you’re chatting away as kindred spirits and like you’ve known each other forever? This book is like that.
Dear Reader is part memoir, part book reviews, part treasury of books, part philosophical. Rentzenbrink is bubbly and enthusiastic, yet she is also real and honest about life’s hardships too and has had her fair share of grief and hurdles.
I cried reading of her brother, laughed about her adventures as a bookseller (having previous worked in a bookshop I also empathised with quite a bit of this) and felt motivated to look up literacy social justice projects. This book really is a bit of everything, a library of life in itself.
Bibliophiles and book nerds are definitely going to love this one!

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love reading Cathy's books, and I especially enjoyed this one as we share an innate love of reading. My journey was through books was a bit more horror and humour based, with Koontz, Herbert and Pratchett leading the way.
I have added a few more titles to my reading list, and am nudged, yet again, towards writing my own attempt at fiction.
A definite recommendation.

This is an absolute must-read for all book lovers. Especially people, like me, who are open to reading any genre. This is part memoir and part a love letter to books and the joy of reading.

We follow Rentzenbrink from her childhood and student years, through to when she starts her career working with books and becomes a mother. Throughout the different phases of her life, she details the books that were important to her and why. She also makes lots of book recommendations which were so useful, and I have added lots of previously unknown books to my tbr pile since I finished this.

There's so much to love about this book - from Rentzenbrink's insights into book selling from her time working at Waterstones, to hearing her thoughts on books I've also read. It was also interesting to hear how what she was going through in her life at the time may have impacted the books' meanings.

Have just read this in one sitting (unlike the three books a day that Cathy can get through) and found it completely engrossing; not just as a fellow reader but also for the autobiographical detail that runs through the book. Many of the books that she has most enjoyed and which have meant so much to her have been categorised into themes to fit around episodes in her biography, including childhood, grief, pubs, love, and family. There are also books categorised by aspects of writing in general and a writer’s life. Parts of the book - where the author is working in bookshops are laugh out loud funny. Other aspects will have you in tears.

Throughout the book - as I was reading on a Kindle - I kept shopping for many of the books she recommends and of which I hadn’t been aware. I thoroughly recommend this book to any reader and look forward to reading many of Cathy’s recommendations.

In Dear Reader, Cathy Rentzenbrink takes us through her life in books, discussing the stories that got her through school, college and university, the tragic loss of her brother and post-university directionlessness, working in bookshops, for a literacy programme and as a writer, and family life. Along the way, she recommends her favourite books on a number of themes.

Of course, as a prolific reader myself (though on nowhere near the same level as Rentzenbrink), I was always going to enjoy this book. It was a massive thrill to read so many things that made me think ‘yes!’. To name just three such things: her reliance on books to provide an escape in hard times; her suggestion that enjoying the Famous Five is an indication you’re going to love crime fiction later on; and her conviction that the best memoirs don’t just recount a life, but consider the nature of memory, truth and narrative.

I also agreed wholeheartedly that the sole purpose of adult literacy shouldn’t be so you can fill in forms and get a job, but so you can derive enjoyment from reading books and maybe even write your own story.

At the same time, Dear Reader reminded me that no two bookworms have read all the same books, or experienced the books they have in common in the same way. So while I was excited to share Rentzenbrink’s opinions on the wonderful What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn, as well as Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles and Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole diaries, I hadn’t read a large chunk of the books she discussed or recommended (but will definitely be adding quite a few of them to my TBR!). By the same token, while she loved A. S. Byatt’s Possession and Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, I couldn’t get into the former and found the latter relentlessly depressing - the poor main character suffered one cruel misfortune after another.

I also enjoyed reading the author’s recollections of working in bookshops. As with Shaun Bythell’s Diary of a Bookseller and Confessions of a Bookseller, I found her experiences really interesting and funny/bemusing - but, having done my time in retail, I would never want that job myself! Rentzenbrink was suited to this work by her talkative nature - by contrast, I’m very socially awkward and find it much easier to express what I want to say about books online.

I loved watching Rentzenbrink progress from bookseller to manager to Quick Reads showrunner to writer, a journey she didn’t start until she was 27. It’s so nice to see someone become who they were always meant to be, and - proving everything she says about books bringing comfort and validation - it was life-affirming to read about someone else who didn’t find their niche until their late 20s!

Dear Reader made my heart sing with recognition and inspiration. It got me thinking about what titles I’d mention if I wrote a book in the same vein. I imagine I’d talk about constantly rereading Louise Rennison’s Georgia Nicolson series as a teenager (another influence on your reading experiences is your age - this set of books is very special to many of us who were teens in the early 2000s!). I’d discuss how I discovered post-colonial literature (such as Andrea Levy’s Small Island and Zadie Smith’s White Teeth) thanks to an A Level module, and only really reading fiction during the holidays as an undergraduate (notably Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy trilogy during my breaks at Sainsbury’s).

I’d go on to discuss getting back into reading during my post-university existential crisis, the many authors I discovered working in a charity shop and for a library service (too many to mention here, but this includes a lot of the crime authors whose books I pre-order as soon as they become available). I could mention the history books (Leonore Davidoff’s Thicker Than Water, Simon Szreter & Kate Fisher’s Sex Before the Sexual Revolution) and autobiographies (Antonia White, Elizabeth Goudge) I read for my PhD that left a lasting impression.

Unlike Rentzenbrink, I’m not much of a re-reader these days - not because I don’t want to, but because I’m too susceptible to the lure of exciting-looking books I haven’t read yet - but I would write about 2017, when I stuck to a New Year’s resolution to reread one book for every two new ones. I’d then bring things bang up to date with the five-star books I might not have read had I not decided to ease my lockdown boredom by taking part in more blog tours (Simon Edge’s Anyone for Edmund? and Celia Rees’ Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook to name just a couple!).

A charming stroll through the author’s life bookshelf - promoting memories of my own early formative reading, and the adding or re-adding of titles to my ‘to read’ list!

An ode to books and reading, this will bring comfort, joy and new reading ideas to all whose love of books has been with with them throughout their lives. Rentzenbrink lists all the books that have meant much to her in good times and bad, and how they have been an integral part of her life, from early childhood to the present day. Any reader would find the list fascinating and informative, and the autobiographical musings on why these books matter to her are moving and sometime shocking - I had no idea a bookseller could come in for so much appalling behaviour from customers! This is a book to read in one sitting if you like, but it could also be something to dip into to find a book to match your mood.

4.5 stars. Dear Reader is such a thoughtful and heart-warming non-fiction about a woman’s love for literature. We see the importance of books in her life: how they comforted her in hard times, the role they played in her career path, and how they shaped her views on life. I couldn’t recommend this enough - especially the parts about her working in bookshops.

Dear Reader by Cathy Rentzenbrink is a delightful, semi-autobiographical journey through the author's life and the books she loves.
The chapters vary between giving an insight into the author's life and giving brief recommendations and overviews of certain books, grouped within a theme.
It was a delightful read! I saw myself reflected as a reader - the sense of becoming so engrossed in a book that you can't put it down, the joy of escaping into the pages of a fictional world and the power of books to offer solace through difficult times.
It's a portrait of life as a reader, by a reader for readers. It looks at the doors that reading can open and also addresses the privilege that it is to be able to read.
If you love books and love reading then this book will resonate with you and may well offer a few more titles to your "to read" list.

There are a very specific set of people who will enjoy reading a book about books, I am one of those people. There is something very satisfying about reading a book written by someone who understands what it is like to be a bookworm.

There were many times whilst reading Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Books that I felt like the author could have been describing me. It is a book about a life live through books, a chronological record of the books she read at different times in her life. There is humour in their but loss too and how the books she was reading helped her deal with her grief.

One such time was when she talks about her need to reread old familiar books when everything become overwhelming.

“This is what I have always done. When the bite of real life is too brutal, I retreat into made-up worlds and tread well-worn paths. I don’t crave the new when I feel like this but look for solace in the familiar.”

One particular passage of the book is what I would use if I had to sum myself up using a quote.

“Reading has been a great source of comfort, knowledge, pleasure and joy. It is the most central aspect of my identity; the truest thing I could say about myself is, I am a reader.”

Her early experiences of people disapproving of the speed of which she read and the comments she received about her love of reading are all ones I had experienced myself, a kind of shame. For example, one of my teachers once asked my parents to stop letting me read at home because I was showing up the other students.

Many of the books mentioned are books I have read and loved but there were also some that I jotted down along the way as books to add to the list of books I want to read.

I felt nostalgic as she told us about disobeying her parents and standing by the window to try and snatch the last vestiges of light to carry on reading long after she should have been sleeping. I have vague memories of doing the same thing because I wanted to carry on reading but shared a room with my sister who wanted to sleep.

One of the things she talks about that particularly holds true for me is the use of books to alleviate difficult times.

“Reading has saved my life, again and again, and has held my hand through every difficult time.”

There are many passages in the book which spoke to me, but I will add this final one:

“I still ignore my friends and neglect my family to carry on reading, and it remains nearly impossible for me to stop reading something when I’m within grasping distance of the end.”

I love books which, ironically to a degree, explore the transformative power of books. Cathy Rentzenbrink takes the reader down a rabbit hole of books from childhood, adulthood from elements of wonder to grief. While books are used by many to distract people from their real-world experiences, many of the books Cathy read complemented and balanced her life experiences, something which I very much related to. A truly wonderful memoir

Rentzenbrink gives us an autobiography, laced with the books that have supported and sustained her, comforted and given her joy, challenged and changed her. Each chapter of her story is full of books, but I also really enjoyed the short in between chapters of themed reading suggestions. We are, it appears, roughly the same age and we have very similar taste in books. I would very much enjoy a few hours in a coffee shop, chatting books with her. Her work with Quick Reads was fascinating, as I volunteered in a school for a few years, teaching reluctant readers how to enjoy books rather than feel inadequate or stupid because they didn't know they could enjoy them. This was inspiring in many, many ways and I now have a new reading list full of the things she loves that I haven't read to go and fill my already bulging shelves with. I loved this.

“Reading built me and always has the power to put me back together again”

Dear Reader is a love letter to books, their power to heal, support you through difficult phases in your life and invoke memories.

I raced through this book and added many, many new books to my to read list in the process. Highly recommended for all who love books and reading.

I’ve always loved reading, but Cathy Rentzenbrink has reminded me of the true magic of getting lost in books!
I was captivated from beginning to end, have been struggling with reading a little lately but it’s renewed my appetite for it!
Definitely a book any reader should read.

A memoir told through the books the author has loved over the years, charting her journey from a book-mad child to bookseller to author.
Slightly slow start, but then the book really gets going - lots of books are mentioned, each with a short resume. It is a journey that reminds you of books you have read and tempts you with others. Great for keen readers who will identify with the books they recognise and find new ideas.
I feel this book would be better read as a book than digitally, so it can be kept and annotated as books are read!