My Life with Bob

Pamela Paul has kept a single book by her side for twenty-eight years carried throughout high school and college, hauled from Paris to London to Thailand, from job to job, safely packed away and then carefully removed from apartment to house to its current perch on a shelf over her desk reliable if frayed, anonymous-looking yet deeply personal. This book has a name: Bob. Bob is Pauls Book of Books, a journal that records every book shes ever read, from Sweet Valley High to Anna Karenina, from Catch-22 to Swimming to Cambodia, a journey in reading that reflects her inner life her fantasies and hopes, her mistakes and missteps, her dreams and her ideas, both half-baked and wholehearted. Her life, in turn, influences the books she chooses, whether for solace or escape, information or sheer entertainment. But My Life with Bob isnt really about those books. Its about the deep and powerful relationship between book and reader. Its about the way books provide each of us the perspective, courage, companionship, and imperfect self-knowledge to forge our own path. Its about why we read what we read and how those choices make us who we are. Its about how we make our own stories.