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aftaerglows's review against another edition
4.0
i really enjoy reading about reading. i started this because of zadie smith, but her essay (which was the first one) was pretty underwhelming, while there were others that i actually really enjoyed, especially mark haddon's, jeanette winterson's etc. michael rosen's was so bad i had to skip it
megangraff's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoyed these essays about reading. I read them slowly, reading only one essay at a time and interspersing them with other reading.
margaret21's review against another edition
3.0
Why read? This book of essays by ten people who write for a living provides some answers. I've dipped in and out of this book, and the essay I most recently enjoyed was Zadie Smith's description of her childhood reading and what an important part libraries played in her upbringing. An enjoyable and sometimes thought-provoking book for readers who probably don't need convincing.
fionasfiction's review
3.0
I think the subject matter and some of the stronger essays (Jeanette Winterson, Zadie Smith) make me give this a higher rating than what I was left with. I loved reading about how reading changes lives. I love the discussion surrounding our ideas about literature. However, one gripe I take with a couple of the writers in this book probably stems from it being a product of its time, which is to say published in 2011. Ebooks were still a fairly new product and there is a lot of techophobic hostility at the mere idea of technology destroying precious, beloved, obviously superior physical books. But the text is alive and evolving as we do and now more accessible to everyone, and if we followed that ideology we would still be relying on monks to hand write our books.
stardewluna's review against another edition
4.0
i really enjoy reading about reading. i started this because of zadie smith, but her essay (which was the first one) was pretty underwhelming, while there were others that i actually really enjoyed, especially mark haddon's, jeanette winterson's etc. michael rosen's was so bad i had to skip it
fluentinsilence's review against another edition
3.0
lovely collection. toch wel een echte aanrader voor iedereen die 'serieus' van lezen/boeken houdt. het gekke is echter wel dat dit boek niet-lezers wil overtuigen, terwijl de echte liefhebbers het waarschijnlijk zullen lezen en niet andersom.
nouja.
Jeanette Winterson, Tim Parks, Jane Davis, Carmen Callil, Michael Rosen: dank voor de woorden.
nouja.
Jeanette Winterson, Tim Parks, Jane Davis, Carmen Callil, Michael Rosen: dank voor de woorden.