Nancy Pearl Lecture -- June 8

Nancy Pearl, an award-winning author, celebrated librarian, and regular commentator on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition," delighted an audience of 100 during a lecture at Bradley University on June 8.

During the hour-long program, Nancy shared the origins of her love of reading and libraries, explained how her two Book Lust books came to be written, and even talked about the "perils" of a life of reading.

Pearl, who grew up in an unhappy home in lower-middle-class Detroit, spent most of her childhood and adolescence at the Parkman Branch Library, immersing herself in a world of books and the comfort of kindly librarians. At the age of 10, she knew what she wanted to be when she grew up: a librarian.

"I wanted others to find books to love as much as I'd loved them," she said. "I believe there is a book that will turn everyone into a reader."

After college, she became a children's librarian and author, penning the well-known Book Lust and More Book Lust, guides to must-read books in hundreds of quirky categories.

She said that although Book Lust listed approximately 1,800 books in 175 categories, she felt guilty about the more the books and authors who were left off the list. "I asked my readers to write in and tell me what I left out," she noted. "I expected five people to write, but got hundreds of emails from people who each listed 200 books I left out."

As a result, a follow-up to Book Lust was requested from her publisher. Pearl, who joked that it should have been titled Book Lust 2: The Morning After, included another 1,200 books in the sequel.

Pearl then ticked off a list of four "perils" to a life of reading:

1. When you learn your vocabulary through a life of reading, you never really know how to pronounce anything. She joked that for years, she pronounced words incorrectly, including segue (see-goo-ey), misled (mice-eld), and belle (belly). When asked how she could possibly mispronounce so many words despite her voracious reading appetite, Pearl responded, "I just tell people I have a reader's vocabulary, not a speaker's vocabulary."

2. When engrossed in a good book and you run into a word you don't know, you often are too lazy to look up the meaning in a dictionary. Pearl related a highly amusing anecdote about context when she told that audience that after reading a book where a character died of consumption, she immediately asked herself, "Well, who ate her?"

3. When enamored of an author and you read book after book in a series, you may begin speaking in a manner that confuses your friends. She said when she was reading the Master and Commander series, set in the early 19th century, she began saying "ahoy" instead of "hello" and getting all kinds of strange looks from others.

4. The most serious peril, according to Pearl, is never being certain if memories are those of your own or those of characters in books you've read. For instance, when describing a dress she wore to her junior prom, Pearl instead began describing the dress worn by a character in the book Double Date. "As a result," she said, "I don't think I remember a thing from my high school years."

At the end of her presentation, she answered questions from the audience. In response to a question about "abandoning" a bad book, Pearl had the following piece of advice: Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50 says that if you're under the age of 50, you've read the first 50 pages in a book, and care only about who marries who or who killed who, turn to the last page. If you're over 50, subtract your age from 100, and that's how many pages you should read before giving up on a book.

"There's nothing that rewards us better for getting older," she explained, "because when you turn 100 you really can then judge a book by its cover."

Nancy Pearl's appearance at Bradley University was made possible in part by Continuing Education and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.