Reading Room: A Year of Literary Curiosities

by Ian Sansom

This is a playful and provocative collection of 365 extracts sourced from the British Library's collections. Selected to challenge and inform the reader, each excerpt is accompanied by the unique shelfmark number of the source publication. Encompassing a wide range of great works in literature, poetry, essays and letters, historical and scientific treatises, and including beloved and popular authors as well as controversial writers, each extract will encourage enquiry and stimulate the imagination.

Beautifully designed and illustrated with the Library's collections, with one extract for every day of the year, this book can be read as a thought to start the day or can be dipped into for inspiration at random.

Includes extracts from:
Joseph Conrad: The Mirror of the Sea: Memories and Impressions
Sigmund Freud: 'The Interpretations of Dreams'
Betty Friedan: The Feminine Mystique
David Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature
Plato: The Republic
Hannah Arendt: The Human Condition
Jane Austen: letter to Cassandra Austen, 17/18 Oct. 1815
Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol
George Orwell: The English People
Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Genres: Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

Published October 10, 2019

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating collection of literary passages alongside some beautiful illustrations. It was a real mixture of curiosities, some pieces of writing that I enjoyed more than others. It was useful to find a note below naming the author and book that the writing had come from which will assist me in further reading, although if there was a re-print I'd strongly suggest putting this in a darker print rather than its current silver/light grey so it is readable by all.

[Paul Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wonderful collection of daily insights into life. A day by day offering from the vast resources of the British Library by a wide array of writers, philosophers, novelist, poets and many others.

A beautiful coffee table book to be read again next year.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A year-round read for 2023. Beautiful and interesting illustrations which are often of more interest than the words but, frustratingly, there are no credits so we are left wondering.