Here's all you need to know about this one: This was was so original and entertaining, I ended up buying a copy for myself!

I had so much fun reading this one! It's a love letter to readers and trivia buffs. The format just added to the fun. If you have a reader in your life and are struggling to find a gift, then look no further!

This was an interesting concept: a revival of the phone book as a way to show appreciation for books. There are lots of inside jokes and gushing reviews of books not too far off the beaten track. I think students will enjoy looking through this more than an actual yellow pages.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

This is a fun book. I like that it includes local bookstores for me and bookstores across the US. I would highly recommend this book!

This is a super quirky and would make for an amazing gift for both bibliophiles as well as retro lovers.

I think it's best enjoyed in the physical format. An ebook does not do it full justice. Oh, and yes this is totally US-centric. While the snippets included about some of the books is enjoyable, the other elements that add to the charm of the book (like list of bookstores, numbers to call for the added experience) are really meant for US audiences.

So, well, for US audiences, I would definitely say that this is a 4-star read. As a non-US reader, I would probably go for a 3-star, but given the overall quirkiness of the book, and the fact that I enjoy books about books, I am settling for a 4 star rating.

What a delightful literary gem! A celebration of books, authors, reading, and readers. I absolutely adored it.

I received a copy of the book from Netgalley to review. Thank you for the opportunity.
A unique and wonderful book perfect for book lovers. I found it really interesting to read people's voice mails and I wish I could have called some of the numbers.
However, the editing was atrocious making near on impossible and frustrating to read this copy.
A good read

The Call Me Ishmael Phonebook, Logan Smalley, Avid Readers Press, 256 pgs, 31 Dec 2020

This labor of love by Logan Smalley and Stephanie Kent is supercool and would make a great gift for bookish people.

A challenge was issued to readers everywhere to call a universal phone number and tell a story about a book they love. As messages poured in, it was clearly a massive success. Smalley and Kent put their heads together and created this ‘phonebook’ to link the thousands of anonymous messages from around the world.

Call the main universal number, enter a 4 digit extension you find in this phonebook about a book you are curious about and listen to an anonymous reader share a story about said book. I put it to the test, beginning my exploration and listened to dozens of stories. It was delightful and a great way to start the day. The passion of readers shines through and stories of how they relate to these books lifted my spirits.

Will post upon publication.

Very cool idea and a perfect giftable book for any bibliophile! Loved the result of this collection of mixed content.

What an awesome concept for lovers of reading everywhere! I was given an ARC by Netgalley, so I didn't get the added benefit of having this book in my hands, but I still got a lot of pleasure out of it.

So many brilliant ideas at work here, the idea of having readers call a phone number to tell anecdotes and opinions surrounding their love of reading, and then to cull those messages into a phone book format...terrific!
Also to have to have actual phone numbers to call to listen to many more contributions as well as to leave new messages also brill!
I definitely need to buy myself a copy of this book!

A phone book/guide book for a very cool and creative idea: Set up a phone number and invite readers to call in and leave voicemails talking about the books they love. This "phone book" provides a listing of those messages for us to call in and listen to, broken down by subject matter, location, author and title, peppered with "ads" for local bookstores, actual literary locations (Ingalls Homestead!!), and fake locations based on the books in the listings (they are like little inside jokes - fun to figure out). Now, the key is, you've got to actually call in and listen to these messages, otherwise this book is somewhat pointless - so if you're reading this on the train, or at night before falling asleep, or something like that where you can't exactly pull out your phone and listen to a bunch of messages, you miss a lot of the beauty of this project. But do make the effort to call and listen at some point, as it's worth it.

Interesting, Quirky Concept....
An interesting and quirky concept. A number to leave a voicemail message about your most beloved books for others to listen to, those messages collected in this Yellow Pages format. A fun idea for a gift, perhaps, and may become a useful reference point for book lovers.

The exquisite Call Me Ismael Phone Book is in the style of a retro phone book, if you remember those. I haven’t seen one in at least two decades.

Short history lesson (feel free to skip this paragraph)
They used to drop large paperback phone books off for free at everyone’s house annually. They had a section with yellow pages filled with businesses’ phone number and address by subject that included paid ads. There was also a white pages section with phone numbers and addresses alphabetical by business or individual last name. You had to pay the phone company to remove your name from the white pages. Between payment for inclusion in the yellow pages and fees for exclusion in the white pages, old Mama Bell made some bucks.

This book uses the same format. The yellow pages contain little blurbs from real and anonymous people about how books impacted their life. Some books are listed with just a reference number so you can use to listen to the entire message using your phone. You are encouraged to call a phone number and leave your own book story too.

The book encourages a little geocaching (without the cache) by mapping bookish locations too. Puzzles are also included along with lists of independent bookstores by state.

I really enjoyed reading the blurbs and seeing (and hearing) others talk about books that I have enjoyed too. I only had one issue with the book. The eARC I was reading was rather hard to read. I downloaded a Kindle sample and the use of boxes makes it much easier to read. However, I cannot overestimate how much better this book is in print. Spend the extra $8 to get the authors’ intended full effect.

If you love books and/or are looking for a new book to read, the Call Me Ismael Phone Book is a great book to read. It would also make a great gift to a bookish friend. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars (but just for the physical book)!

Thanks to Avid Reader Press and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

I don't want to be snooty about a book (not the project, that's cool) that tries to get people to read more books, but I was not sold about the idea. Part of it is me, not the book - I wasn't expecting anything close to a phone book (hello! Chaitra, wake up, what about the Call Me Ishmael PHONE book didn't give you a clue?). No, I knew this was a call-in project, and what I was expecting was a compilation of people's stories. This one is structured more like the Yellow Pages, with enough excerpts that I won't feel bad about using this book for challenges, but also, it's not entirely excerpts and requires us to call in to hear people's stories about books, arranged according to subject. Not a bad idea, except for the telephone charges involved, and ugh, if a forum like Goodreads didn't exist.

I might still buy it as a Christmas gift for a couple of my casual reader friends who aren't on Goodreads/Booktube/Bookstagram/whatever, but it's not for me. What I did get out of it was a great list of indie bookstores in my state. Apparently there's one in a shopping center I go to all the time because my favorite Indian restaurant is there, but I never knew the bookstore existed. So. As soon as I feel comfortable venturing into small spaces, I'm going to that bookstore.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thanks to Avid Reader for sharing this ARC with me through Netgalley and Edelweiss. It’s a wonderful concept and book. For those who don’t know, Call Me Ishmael is a phone line you can call and leave messages about your favorite books. I remember hearing about it on the Books on the Nightstand podcast years ago and thinking that it sounded like a cool project. Well this book is an interactive compilation of many of those phone calls, plus some fun bonus content. So first, enter the Call Me Ishmael phone number into your contacts, you’re going to want to make it a favorite! Each reference in the book includes an extension to the call being referenced, and you can listen to the original caller’s message. It’s a genius idea and a lot of fun. This book (I recommend the hard copy although I reviewed an ebook version) would be a great gift to yourself or to any book lover you know. Definitely recommended for all us bookish types.

This book will be enjoyed by bibliophiles and those who like a quirky read. It arose from the experiences of two book lovers who created a voicemail where readers could leave messages about the stories that they loved.

This book includes all kinds of interesting book related entries. They are organized according to calls by subject, calls by book title and calls by authors. The book includes actual phone numbers that will either have a message or where a reader can leave a message. By listing numbers it is a tribute to the phone books of old. Readers can also read some of the messages that the compilers of this title received.

If you are a reader who loves books and all things quirky, take a look at this book with its telephone book graphics. It is a treasure trove.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.

Incredibly unique. Browse through the pages of this "phone book" to get book recommendations from strangers based on topic. Each entry has a four digit extension to use when calling the book's designated phone number. Interspersed with ads that read like literary inside jokes and lists of bookstores by state. An experience unlike any other and definitely a quirky item. Not for everyone but those who like it will love it.

I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed are my own.

I can't wait to see what this looks like in print! I am old enough to remember phonebooks (and when the "Call Me Ishmael" phones were getting popular) and this book is SO much fun. It's also extremely helpful; it has its books organized by topic, which makes browsing for recommendations really easy. In pre-covid times, I would definitely have encouraged my library to put a phone by it so people could call and get recommendations. As it is, I enjoyed paging through it and listening to the stories of some of my favorite books. When I'm ready to choose my next book, I'll definitely be consulting Call Me Ishmael!

(I even contacted our ordering department to request it as a reference book and was pleasantly surprised that it had already been ordered!)

Thanks to Avid Reader Press for the DRC!

That's a wonderful idea!
I really enjoyed reading these reviews. There's something magical about people talking about books they love, that changed them forever. Truly inspiring!

Rather unusual one, this. It's the book version of a project to have a lot of 'Book Doctor'-styled contacts available to people. So here, we get something dressed up as an old-fashioned Yellow Pages telephone directory, and are invited to ring a number (a Nantucket one, it turns out, so as to the charges involved from where you are you're on your own), and input the four-digit number provided by the book (or, I guess, a random one to see what comes out, which it surprisingly fails to suggest, although there is a random entry generator you can access) and the extension you have selected gets to play you a message extolling the virtues of the reading material at hand. You also get a good handful of transcriptions here, too, as well as the faux-vintage ads to use for literary advice, hints and one-way chat. So you might find somebody saying Harry Potter got them through their mother's crack binges, or a surprising encounter on a plane, love over a passed-down school edition of Dickens, or perhaps someone insisting 'Moby Dick' isn't as long in the reading as it first appears – or of course anything in between. It might also be about a certain book store or chain, or literary place.

Now, quite often I find a book that would work just as well if it were a webpage, but for the actual physicality of it. And clearly here the whole telephonic database could easily be replaced by a wiki or other type of site online. But I did find the visual representation of all the adverts to be quite in keeping with the whole mood of the piece, and the fact a book is here to praise other books is the only right way of doing things. One for the smallest room's small browsing times it may be, but it's achieved what it aims to do – it's pleasant, affirmatory and yet successful in goading you to the books you have always put aside for a future day. A strong four stars.

Oh, and by the way I didn't see anyone declare 'Moby Dick' to be shorter than expected, but no less than three voicemails left in its honour mention it in relation to reading out loud. RIP three larynxes.