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On The Art Of Reading by Arthur Quiller-Couch

hcq's review

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4.0

I love Q. I was introduced to him by Helene Hanff, in her charming book, *Q's Legacy* (linking isn't working right now, unfortunately).

I don't often agree with his taste, and I sadly don't have the Greek he assumes I know, but reading him makes me happy. Admittedly, his world was limited in many ways (sexist, racist, classist, etc., all stipulated), but the standard of literacy and civility he simply expects and embodies is bracing, and gives me something to aspire to. Just because he wasn't thinking of me as his student doesn't mean I'm not.

I also discovered, reading this particular book on my phone, that I love reading old books on modern screens. There's something odd and marvelous about reading a lecture he gave exactly 100 years earlier, to the day, and doing so on a tiny, incredibly powerful machine he couldn't even have imagined.
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