"Bob Comet is a retired librarian, isolated but not lonely, living out his quiet days in a mint-colored house in Oregon, surrounded by his books and small comforts. One morning, out on his daily walk, he performs an act of kindness that brings him into contact with a nearby senior center, where he soon begins volunteering. Here, as a community of peers and friends gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from...

Chronologically organized: ranging from the I Ching in 1500 B.C.E. to B. F. Skinner's 1971 Beyond Freedom and Dignity, this collection includes books dealing with religion, philosophy, science and politics. Some familiar names are Aristotle, Shakespeare, Freud and Darwin, also lesser-known thinkers as Mary Wollstonecraft, James Clerk Maxwell, and Simone de Beauvoir.

"From "the most powerful book critic in the English-speaking world" (Vanity Fair) comes 100 personal, thought-provoking essays of the life-changing books she wouldn't want you to miss--beautifully illustrated throughout"--

"One night in 2014, two readers named Logan Smalley and Stephanie Kent discussed their favorite literary opening lines. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," one suggested. "All of this happened, more or less," the other pointed out. And then, one phrase came immediately to mind: "Call Me Ishmael." As they talked more, the pair wondered what would happen if they invited readers to call a phone number and ask them to leave a voicemail...

"In a working-class town in a county west of London, a schoolgirl scribbles in the back pages of her exercise book, thrilling to the first sparks of her own inventiveness. As she grows, she becomes one on whom nothing is lost. Not the novels an eccentric customer slips her at the grocery store where she works as a checkout clerk, or the indelible outline of the careening creature himself. Not the growing heaps of books in which she loses--and finds--herself....

Presents guidance for parents on reading aloud, encouraging reluctant readers, rewarding progress, and getting involved in a child's school, and lists over three thousand children's books, providing at-home story-time, craft, cooking, science, and related-reading activities.