As anyone familiar with the work of Joe Queenan would expect, One for the Books might just be the most sarcastic book about books ever written. What may come as a surprise to fans of Red Lobster, White Trash and the Blue Lagoon and other Queenan titles, though, is that the habitually acerbic cultural critic has a huge soft spot for books.
"There's nothing I would rather do than read books," Queenan confesses. The attachment began as a source of refuge, described in his memoir Closing Time, while growing up with an alcoholic father whose sole redeeming quality, in Queenan's eyes, was that he, too, was a reader. He estimates he's read somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 books, conceding that, alongside the classics, "the mysteries, the beach reading, and the out-of-out trash really puff up the numbers."
Though he's a committed book buyer, libraries have been the source of some of Queenan's most entertaining reading adventures. There was the year he spent reading books he pulled haphazardly from the shelves, and the year he devoted to reading an entire short book every day. Queenan also reveals some quirks, like his determination to hang on to every book he has purchased as an adult and his refusal to accept reading tips from strangers (or most friends, for that matter).
Even at his most caustic, Queenan defines himself as a true book lover. "Every life, even the best ones, ends in sadness," he writes. "Books hold out hope that things may end otherwise." That's a sentiment every avid reader will appreciate. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer