Nancy Pearl is an American librarian, best-selling author, literacy critic and was, until August 2004, the Executive Director of the Washington Centre for the Book at Seattle Public Library. Her prolific reading and knowledge of books and literature first made her locally famous in Seattle, Washington, where she regularly appears on public radio recommending books. She achieved broader fame with Book Lust, her 2003 guide to good reading. Pearl was named 2011 Librarian of the Year by Library Journal.
“If you're 50 years old or younger, give every book about 50 pages before you decide to commit yourself to reading it, or give it up. If you're over 50, which is when time gets shorter, subtract your age from 100 - the result is the number of pages you should read before deciding whether or not to quit. If you're 100 or over you get to judge the book by its cover, despite the dangers in doing so.”
“I have for a long time felt that our society is becoming more and more fractured and divisive and that you could go a whole day without really talking to another person. If you give people a good book to talk about, you can build a community out of a diverse group. A common language grows out of it.”
“I just said, 'Well, the real people performing miracles every day are librarians,' and we all laughed ourselves off our chairs.”
“Reading has always brought me pure joy. I read to encounter new worlds and new ways of looking at the world. I read to enlarge my horizons, to gain wisdom, to experience beauty, to understand myself better, and for the pure wonderment of it all. I read and marvel over how writers use language in ways I never thought of. I read for company, and for escape. Because I am incurably interested in the lives of other people, both friends and strangers, I read to meet myriad folks and enter their lives- for me, a way of vanquishing the “otherness” we all experience.”
“Whenever I begin reading a new book, I am embarking on a new, uncharted journey with an unmarked destination. I never know where a particular book will take me, toward what other books I will be led.”
“If you still don't like a book after slogging through the first 50 pages, set it aside. If you're more than 50 years old, subtract your age from 100 and only grant it that many pages.”
“To read Hotel Angelina is to celebrate how this diverse group of writers (and readers, all of them) can pool their talents and expertise to come up with such an entertaining and soul-satisfying novel.”
“I can relate to the novelist Carrie Brown...who described herself as being 'a promiscuous reader.' I'll give almost any book a chance to have its way with me.”
“Girl discovers reading, then discovers life.”
