Booklover: A One-Year Journal of Reading, Reflecting & Remembering

As a member of perhaps the last generation of truly devoted readers, Tim Bazzett uses a lifelong love affair with books as a springboard to recalling an eventful life marked by unexpected twists and turns that took him and his family from Michigan to California to Europe and back, during his various stints as student, teacher, and recycled soldier. He reflects thoughtfully on his 21 years as a Russian linguist with the National Security Agency, noting the sacrifices required by a career cloaked in secrecy and the toll it can take on a marriage. In the end, however, Booklover is most of all a love story, a nakedly candid and affectionate look back by Bazzett at more than forty years of living and raising a family, all with the same brown-eyed girl he met on a Michigan college campus in 1967. If you are a booklover, you will love this book.

"Brave, moving and important ... The sections about [Bazzett's] work at NSA are incredibly poignant and transcend anything about intelligence, but are about men and work ... He has my admiration for his dedication and storytelling."
Doug Stanton
author of the New York Times bestselling books, In Harm's Way and Horse Soldiers

"Tales galore - funny, serious and moving ... all about connectedness and the importance of friendship ..."

~ Olive Mullet (Professor Emerita of English, Ferris State University), in The Big Rapids Pioneer

"Bazzett creates a strong personal voice [that] gave Booklover the kind of authenticity a memoir needs ...  He uses humor well, and I laughed out loud many times ... A most enjoyable read."  ~ Gail Pool, former editor of Boston Review and author of Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America

"Booklover was a wonderful celebration, not only of reading but of life! Full of joy and wonder, a few tears, and always always, the pleasure of reading."  ~ Nina Sankovitch, author of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading and founder of the website readallday.org

"How can I not mention this latest memoir from Tim Bazzett? On the cover of "Booklover: A One-Year Journal of Reading, Reflecting & Remembering," he stands next to a stack of books he's read and right there, smack at knee level, is my own "An Open Book." Bazzett has been chronicling his life in a series of digressive reminiscences, starting with "Reed City Boy" and "Soldier Boy" ... If you like memoirs, check out this latest installment ..."
Michael Dirda
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and critic for The Washington Post , and author of the classic midwestern memoir, An Open Book