This book is a love letter to books and reading and was a wonderfully enjoyable read, I love watching and hearing people talk about books online to finding a book that accomplishes that was a joy,

Cathy Rentzenbrink’s Dear Reader is an absolute gem of a book, an absolute masterpiece which I enjoyed tremendously. I love books, I love reading and reading takes me to so many wonderful places that I have not visited and takes me to many worlds which never exist in real life. Books for me help me in so many different ways - they take you through every emotion possible. They provide help and they provide wisdom and knowledge. Books are steadfast and comforting and always with you whatever your situation, to pick up and take you to a completely different world.

Dear Reader shows Cathy Rentzenbrink's absolute love for everything about books ... owning them, holding them, reading them, working with them, talking about them and sharing her love and knowledge with everyone. Every bookshop needs a Cathy! Not that I do but no one would ever leave a bookshop empty handed if Cathy was working there - she has immense knowledge and love for books and her experience is amazing.

There are so many book recommendations that my TBR has grown considerably since reading Dear Reader! I have read quite a few of the books already talked about and it was lovely to have Cathy Rentzenbrink's insight into them and her passion shines through and through on every page. It was such a fascinating and awe-inspiring read and insight into Cathy Rentzenbrink's love of books and her life as a bookseller. A delightful memoir which I will pick up again and again to read Cathy Rentzenbrink's book recommendations! A book to treasure and keep forever.

Cathy Rentzenbrink’s ‘Dear Reader’ has been an absolute joy to read and I have loved every moment of it. It was a comforting and captivating read, and it certainly found me at the right time. While I often rush through books, ending them too quickly, I purposely slowed down while reading ‘Dear Reader’ wanting to cherish every word.

You can feel Cathy Rentzenbrink’s love for reading and books throughout each and every page of ‘Dear Reader’. It was heart-warming, this feeling of books speaking to some readers in such a manner, and I felt the instant kinship with the author since the very first page of ‘Dear Reader’.
Essentially the love letter to books and all readers, ‘Dear Reader’ is a beautiful memoir filled with some many book recommendations from one reader to another.

Some of the books mentioned by Cathy Rentzenbrink I have read, others I have not even heard about it, but each of them has meant so much to her, and in many ways many of them helped the author through the hardship of her experiences. Each of our experiences is different, we live through different hardships and different joys, and yet books are often the bridges between so many different people. ‘Dear Reader’ does a perfect job of underlying that, especially with Cathy Rentzenbrink’s job at prison and making people fell in love in stories, even if they had not felt like they had that right in the very first place.

The author’s life is expressed through some many different books, accompanying Cathy Rentzenbrink throughout different parts of her life - from young age as a young pupil, to her bookselling career and finally writing.

‘Dear Reader’ is so much more than just a book. It’s in many ways like a friend taking you on a journey that comfort and brings joy to you, while still dealing with so many heartbreaks and grief. It’s beautiful and endearing, and it’s the book I will read more than once.

As soon as I saw Cathy Rentzenbrink was writing another book, I knew I had to read it. Dear Reader is an ode to the joy of reading. I thoroughly enjoyed the mix of autobiography and book recommendations. Her writing is so easy to read that I was able to race through Dear Reader in an afternoon, emerging with a new list of books to enjoy once lockdown is over. As a bookseller, I found her experiences immensely relatable as well as comforting. Thanks Cathy, I can't wait to see what you write next


Edit: I was really intrigued by Cathy's work with Quick Reads and her thoughts on encouraging adults - who might not have read a book since school - to read.

I smiled and chuckled all the way through this book, which I read most of sitting in the garden so I was thankful our neighbours weren’t nearby. Or at least, if they were, they were polite enough not to mention that I was giggling to myself.

I hadn’t come across Cathy Rentzenbrink's writing before, but the description of the book as ‘Dear Reader is a moving, funny and joyous exploration of how books can change the course of your life, packed with recommendations from one reader to another’ sounded perfect. I think, as we head into our eleventy hundredth week of lockdown, I’m finding it really hard to settle on a book, or a podcast, or something – I always seem to be jumping from one thing to another. I currently have no fewer than 6 half read books, which I have vowed to go back to and finish soon. Of course.

So this book, released in September this year, is an author’s ode to reading. It had such a great balance between memoir and chatty book loving friend, Cathy Rentzenbrink is clearly a book lover as well as a great writer. Her candid-ness, her gentle wit and the way she’s so upfront about devastating parts of her life reminded me a bit of Nora Ephron’s writing.

Against the backdrop of something of an unorthodox childhood which saw her and her family live in lots of different places and go to lots of different schools, she talks through her favourite books from childhood in the first section. She explains that books were her constant, her escape – not that she is saying she had a bad childhood, of course, but books allowed her to experience different things and to travel to different places.  Her list includes the Narnia books, which she references a few times and always elicited a feeling of nostalgia and a desire to read them again.

There were so many books like that – memoirs, legacy sagas, love stories, mysteries – all handily broken into phases while our author and guide grows up, marries, moves to New York and loads of other amazing things. For every book I’ve read and loved, there were two that I immediately added to my Goodreads list. It might not have solved my #FirstWorldProblem of having too many books to read, but it also resurrected my love for reading and reminded me how it feels to make new friends in far away lands.

I can think of at least a dozen friends of mine I know who would love this – it’s so accessible and engaging, and impossible to put down. I had hoped it would come with an index so I didn’t have to remember all of the books, but the digital ARC didn’t. Maybe the published version will!

Rentzenbrink has written a couple of more standard memoirs before this one, The Last Act of Love and A Manual for Heartache – I’m looking forward to reading those ones, too.

As usual, a big thank you to Netgalley and to the publisher, PanMacMillan, for the ARC.

This is a perfect read for the current moment. It is honest, introspective and touching. Cathy tells her story through the power of stories themselves. Part memoir, part reflection on the power of reading and part analysis of what it is to be a reader and a writer.
I loved the behind the scenes glimpses of Waterstones and found the aspects linked to adult literacy and accessing books incredibly moving.
I will definitely be sharing this one with the teenagers in my library- there are some inspired recommendations.

This is a beautiful love letter to books and the joy, comfort and pleasure they bring to readers.

Part memoir, part literary anthology, I enjoyed the author's journaling of the books that have enriched her life and helped her through the most difficult parts of it.

This is a real treat for bookworms and very enjoyable read.

A sincere thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for providing me with an ebook copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This is not my usual genre, I’m more into crime/thriller books and even psychological thrillers too so I am extremely pleased and grateful to them for opening up my mind to something totally different.

What a wonderful little meditation on the love tangle of life and books, the pleasures of memories and reading!
In the tradition of "Howard’s End is on the Landing" by Susan Hill and Lucy Mangan’s "Bookworm", this is a splendid personal love declaration to books, as only fanatical and lifelong readers can appreciate.
Interweaving her own memories with the books that seasoned them, drove and comforted her until her own departure as a writer, Cathy Rentzenbrink’s little tome is like having your own tiny book club in your reading nook where you can rave and reminisce to your heart's content. If you’re one of those people who’d rather probe other people’s bookshelves than their Facebook profile in search of a clue of who they are, who has a book on the go in every room of the house, a quote for every occasion, who has aspired to live like a novel and lived vivaciously through stories, this book will delight you to no end.

"Most people apart from my parents told me what I wasn't allowed to do. Books, on the other hand, urged me on, There were no limits."

In this memoir, Cathy talks about reading and books just as any bookish lover would, and as a reading lover myself I really appreciated this.

I was drawn to this book from the beginning, all it took was seeing the title and reading the blurb to know that I would love it. From the first few pages I know this was the book for me, I could relate to her in so many ways just by the fact of how she discussed the reasons for books being important in her life.

I love reading about other book lovers and how certain stories and novels have changed their life. Through this memoir, Cathy does just this, relating titles and authors back to important moments and memories in her own life from job searching and marriage to the death of love ones and the birth of new life.

This book provides many recommendations and descriptions to books that the author read, and I swear if you read this book you'll finish it with a new list of books for the next time you're in a bookstore or browsing online.

It all begins with her love for 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' by C.S. Lewis and only continues on to develop and reflect onto her life as she grows and changes too.

Thanks to Netgalley, Cathy Rentzenbrink and the publisher of this book for providing me with this arc in exchange for my honest review. I look forward to seeing this book on shelves in bookstores in September so I can grab my own physical copy!

This is a little treasure of a book, especially if you enjoy books that tell you about other books! This does precisely that.

We embark on a book journey with the author as she describes her life to date via different books she read along the way. She also gives some background as to why each was important or relevant to her at that time.

If you've ever had a chance to think about the soundtrack to your life, this is a little like that only done in books and it certainly got me thinking about what my own life would look like in this medium.

If you're bookish - I'd definitely recommend this one.

Thanks to Netgalley, Cathy Rentzenbrink and the publisher for enabling me to read an early copy of this book.

Rentzenbrink is so generous with herself and her experiences you feel so welcomed into her story. Once again, she’s created something beautiful and engaging - just as The Last Act of Love was. I’ve been completed transported by this perfect book for book lovers. I couldn’t put it down and I didn’t even notice the time passing I was so engrossed. Just frustrating that it restores your hunger to read books and provides you with more suggestions than you could ever get through at a rate satisfactory to quell that desire.

'We are all in the gutter, but books allow us to see the stars.'

I was looking through my Netgalley to-read list and didn't much feel inspired by any of the selections. Normally, I try to read by when the book will be released, but something about 'Dear Reader' was calling to me.

In this book, Rentzenbrink talks about how she gets a 'tingle' in her fingers when she knows it will be a great read, touching the covers of the books. And I like to think that I got the same feeling when I clicked on this book on my Kindle screen, hoping it would offer me a brief respite from the world.

Book lovers rejoice - this is the read for you. Comforting, warm and charming, this sort-of memoir is a celebration of the reader and how books have acted as a balm for our soul's throughout our lives. Rentzenbrink tracks her life- from her eventful childhood moving all over the UK, to her career selling books - first as a temp before rising to Waterstones' head office - and how books have had a profound impact on her life. This is the kind of book that will remind you WHY you're a reader, why you buy far too many, why you fear ever reaching the end of your TBR list.

It took a moment for me to get into, but once I was hooked, I absolutely raced through this book, drinking in her descriptions of life as a bookseller, of her recommendations, of how she pressed books into the hands of customers in the hallowed walls of our favourite bookshops. I think this is definitely an instance where I read the right book at the right time. I've been feeling a little bit of a burnout recently with reading and this was a reminder of why I love to sit and read, why I spent my childhood with a nose in a book. This is a book that will re-ignite your passion and love for the written word.

My only hope is that the book would be released just a little earlier so everyone could get the same comfort and calm that I felt reading this.

This is the literary equivalent of that perfect conversation you have when you find out that someone loves reading as much as you do. Thinking of a Halloween party circa 2018 when a New Yorker I’d just met and I whiled away about 4 hours discussing our favourite reads - so many aligned and we knew that we had to be friends.

I felt thrilled (and I’m ashamed to say) validated when many of my favourites got a name-check in this book in much the same way.

What most stood out to me was how perceptive the author is in understanding quite why and how books are such a joy, comfort and a constant.

I will admit that I did fear in the beginning that it was all a bit rose-tinted and whimsical, all interspersed with brief book reviews ..... might this get tiresome? Thankfully that was a fear happily unfounded.

Now, on finishing, my only criticism is that my “TBR” pile has grown even larger off the back of an urgent need to read some books not yet read that were detailed so perfectly and spoke to me. Alongside the affirmation that we shared so many favourites alongside these.

Very well done! I was worried about the concept; but this was just lovely. Like a warm hug and a feeling of belonging.

Reading, for me, is one of life’s greatest pleasures. In fact, I have begun to think of it as more than just a pleasure but as a necessity. It provides education, nourishment and escapism. It introduces you to people, places and ideas you may not otherwise have encountered or thought about. It changes you. No where is that better articulated than in this book. Cathy Rentzenbrink discusses her relationship with books from childhood through to the present; how books have gotten her through the darkest times but also how they have shaped the very person she is now.
I devoured this book in one sitting. It felt very much like we were sat together over a cup of tea having a chat about the books we have read and loved. In fact, I loved it so much as soon as I finished I felt so bereft I had to turn back to the beginning and start all over again. The ease with which I was able to digest this was testament to the skill of the author as a writer there were so many poignant and relatable moments within this text that it made me want to read all of the books she wrote about, not least her own.
I feel this is a book I will return to time and time again, as well as buying it as a gift for all my friends. It is a perfect companion in this current climate when so many people are turning to Literature for solace.

A love letter to books- I can think of nothing nicer to read on a dreary afternoon. While I didn't glean many recommendations (not that I need more, as my TBR is already scandalously bloated) I did manage to feel the absolute love that the author has for books and reading. The warmth in this book was palpable, and I felt an instant kinship with the writer as it was so wonderfully parallel to the way so many of us find books. The way that she managed to deal with the vicissitudes of life by turning to well-loved and well-worn pages is such a common thread for so many of us, and I don't doubt that any constant reader will find absolute delight in this book.

I have two very small complaints- one is that I wish it were longer, the second that perhaps a list of all recommended titles appear at the end (maybe with a few more put in there for good measure- I'm always on the lookout for more to add!). With that being said, this book is something I am sure any reader will find a lot of love in it and love it for that reason alone.

Having heard so much about this in the world of twitter, I was so pleased to have been approved to read it via netgalley.

It is a fascinating and reflective book about how reading has shaped Cathy Rentzenbrink’s life. Momentous moments are remembered by particular books and other books are remembered by momentous moments. In between sharing snippets of her book life, and book work, she shares amazing mini reviews of classics, adult fiction, and children’s literature.

I was amazed by the level of detail and history of the books shared...I can remember a few pivotal book moments in my life but this is more than that. This is written by a true bibliophile, someone who lives and breathes books- not just reads for pleasure. It is more than that.

I cam away with a great long list of books to re-read, try out and research for myself. Thank goodness for libraries and audio books, else I would have no money or time for all the books on my list.

It was wonderful to see the impact and influence of Anne Shirley. The entire LM Montgomery series sat on my bookshelves my entire childhood and I still dip back in now and again for the home comforts.

An inspiring book, that prompted my deeper thinking into how books have shaped my own life and which ones would be part of those pivotal moments in my life.....food for thought!

This is a book to recommend to everyone you know!

‘Dear Reader’ is a perfect book for anyone who loves reading, for anyone for whom reading is a relatively new way of life, and for anyone who is interested in other people’s stories. Cathy Rentzenbrink is a bookseller, campaigner, teacher and a wonderfully accessible writer. Whether or not you have read the majority of her references and recommendations is neither here nor there. What she does, through her own story, is to give everyone permission to read whatever they want, be it mainstream, niche or classic, stating, ‘Don’t let anyone tell you that what you like isn’t proper, that what brings comfort and ease to your soul isn’t good enough.’
Throughout the book, there are lists of novels that have brought her joy. The synopses are recorded under customary titles such as ‘Crime’ or less traditional such as ‘Cornwall’ or ‘Orphans’. They are long enough to give us a sense of the narrative, an amuse-bouche which tempts us to reach for the main course. Just as fascinating are her tales of the bookselling world, the behind-the -scenes details of literary festivals, chain and independent bookstores and face-to-face meetings with authors.
At the end of her book she quotes Hilary Mantel’s ‘Bring Up the Bodies’: ‘There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one.’ Not only does this proclamation nudge the reader to seek out one of Rentzenbrink’s recommendations but it also reinforces her point that re-reading can be a wonderful experience. She reminds us that when we revisit a story, we are different people from when we first opened those pages. So, once more, discoveries await us.
My thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

I love non-fiction books about reading; it’s the only ones of the topic that I prefer to read. I like the intimacy of the relationship the author has with books, and it makes me feel seen and envious at the same time. I could never really articulate well what books mean to me, and it is through their words that I am able to bring these feelings to life. With that said, I loved this book. I love how Cathy Rentzenbrink related the plethora of books she read to different parts of her life. I LOVE that she took time to recommend books from various genres. Some of the more recent titles have been sitting on my shelves, unread, and her short passages have reinvigorated my desire to read them.

As a librarian - I had to get my hands on this book! It is wonderful! If you are a reader, this book is a must-read! As a celebration of reading and books, it really is a delight!