The Private Library was reviewed by Jennifer Larson, the new chair of the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies, the current (Spring) issue of the FABS Journal. The review runs to two and a half pages and includes:
“Reid Byers’ opus magnum on private libraries is everything it says in the title, but above all it is about the ways people contrive to have their books about them…. Byers wears his considerable scholarship lightly…. So sprightly and charming is his style that I might call this light reading, were it not that the physical book weighs in at nearly four pounds.”