Welcome to Celebration of Books, a blog and book discussion webspace written and curated by independent bookstore manager, Sarah, and occasional reviews from her sister, Laura.

A bit about Sarah:

I love books, simple as that and I’m the manager of an indie bookstore in the Greater Philadelphia area. My personal library takes up nearly a full room in my apartment and is roughly 1,000 books strong. I’ve been reading voraciously since I was a kid, my first literary memories being racing through the American Girl books in 3rd grade (back in 1997!). I’ve read Harry Potter, and anxiously awaited the new release of each and every book and I adore Hermione. My opinions on books are strong, but I’ll never criticize another based on what they chose to read, so long as they do read. Books are the gateways to magical worlds, they bring us information and new friends. A world without books would be a miserable one indeed!

While there are certainly books that I have not quite enjoyed, I try to review the book based solely on my opinion and frame of mind without slamming the author (though I might skewer the characters), and I also try to encourage others to make up their own minds about a book and/or series and to take all my thoughts with a grain of salt. I do not believe in criticism solely for the sake of being mean or degrading another human being and I hope that my reviews serve to help others find books that they will love and enjoy.

How to Navigate Celebration of Books

New blog posts are posted to the front/main page of the site on Sundays and new features are posted Tuesdays (Bookish Tuesday) & Thursdays (book club reviews & miscellaneous). They are not posted in any particular order, typically they are posted in the order I have read them, with some “backlist” reviews from books read in previous years sprinkled in when I haven’t had a terribly successful reading week.

If you are looking for a specific review, one that you saw before and can’t find now, or if you’d like to see if I’ve reviewed specific books, there are two options here for you in that regard:

Books Reviewed by Author

Books Reviewed by Title

Each page above presents a listing of all of the books so far reviewed in a fairly straightforward organizational manner. Each of these pages can also be found by navigating to the main menu and looking for them as options nested under this page.