Imagine visiting your local library to peruse a randomly chosen shelf of fiction. Then imagine deciding to actually read each book on that shelf, regardless of your interest in the genre or your familiarity with the authors. The essayist and biographer Phyllis Rose did just that, challenging herself with what she thinks of as an adventure in "extreme reading" in the wilds of a historic library on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Working her way through books by authors whose last names begin with LEQ through LES, Rose takes on the early-nineteenth-century Russian classic A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov, The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, contemporary fiction by extraordinarily inventive women, detective novels, and a 758-page picaresque novel written about three hundred years ago. Describing her experiment in The Shelf, Rose considers the role of fiction in our personal lives and cultural landscapes. With reactions ranging from exuberance to exasperation, she serves up a refreshing tour of a singular adventure.

This guide is designed to enrich your discussion of The Shelf. We hope that the following questions will enhance your reading group's exploration of this inspiring literary enterprise.