You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
Interesting short essay. A bit dated (written when digital reading meant reading on your laptop before tablets), but anyone who has loved to read since childhood will relate to her thoughts.
As I have said before, I love reading books about books. I love books where authors share their favorite books and why. This is one of those books. I had two problems with it though: too short, and it needs an update. This book was published in 1998.
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
I loved this book simply because I could relate to it so well. For so long I have been looked at as odd because I prefer reading to just about every other activity in the world. I'm one of the only members of my family who actually enjoys reading for fun. This book not only opened my eyes to some life changing novels but it showed me that I am not alone in my love of reading. I would recommend it to any avid reader out there who sometimes feels like they are alone in their passion for books.
Wonderful book, her story and passions as a reader, really resonated wtih me. I was also the girl inside, nose stuck in a book, completely absorbed by the story and world within the covers!
I enjoyed this paean to books and reading. It's the fourth in a row that I've read in this mini-genre, as I've called it — the previous three being Sara Nelson's So Many Books, So Little Time, Ann Hood's Morningstar: Growing Up with Books, and Pamela Paul's My Life with Bob. Quindlen's book is a short, fast read. It's good, though (since ©1998) a little dated with respect to digital publishing and reading. She only knows of digital books as something one might read on a computer and is certain that no one, not a single person, would be willing to pull one out of a purse on the subway. Well, maybe not, if you're talking about the kind and size of laptops we were using in the 1990s. She didn't foresee the ease of carrying an entire small library on a small digital device. (And here I am worried that Kindles might go away because so many people are reading on their phones and tablets these days. And I read this book on my Kindle, too.) Still, it was a great read, not as deep and complex as Pamela Paul's book, but it contains a lot of observations on the value of books and reading that all book-lovers can relate to. I highlighted an awful lot, given the brevity of the book.
"In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself."
"I did not read from a sense of superiority, or advancement, or even learning. I read because I loved it more than any other activity on earth."
"We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else’s mind."
"Sedition has been the point of the printed word almost since its inception, certainly since Martin Luther nailed on that church door his list of ninety-five complaints against the established Catholic hierarchy. The printing press led to the Reformation, and to revolutions, political and sexual. Books made atheists of believers, and made believers of millions whose ancestors knew religious texts only as works of art, masterpieces hidden away in the monasteries."
"Why would anyone aspire to be president of the United States or of General Motors if they could write like D. H. Lawrence instead? That’s what I remember thinking."
"In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself."
"I did not read from a sense of superiority, or advancement, or even learning. I read because I loved it more than any other activity on earth."
"We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else’s mind."
"Sedition has been the point of the printed word almost since its inception, certainly since Martin Luther nailed on that church door his list of ninety-five complaints against the established Catholic hierarchy. The printing press led to the Reformation, and to revolutions, political and sexual. Books made atheists of believers, and made believers of millions whose ancestors knew religious texts only as works of art, masterpieces hidden away in the monasteries."
"Why would anyone aspire to be president of the United States or of General Motors if they could write like D. H. Lawrence instead? That’s what I remember thinking."
An interesting essay—not quite what I expected for some reason. This is a selection for the MMD book club which is how I found out about it. I can relate to being a voracious reader as a child. Unlike the author, this didn’t translate into a passion for writing, sadly. I found the section on the demise of the book to be strange given the 20 years that have passed. The book seems to be doing better than the newspaper, unlike the predictions from that time. Her reading lists were interesting and I will likely look up some of her novels in the future.
Borrowed from the library.
Borrowed from the library.
How Reading Changed My Life is a short (71 page) volume of reflections on the role reading has played in Anna Quindlen's life and development as a writer. It is a quick, easy, and entertaining read, and one in which I found Ms. Quindlen’s experiences with reading often reflected my own. I recall on one occasion being approached by a group of my nieces and nephews at my wife’s family reunion (many years ago…they are now grown and many have been converted to reading). I was sitting on the grass reading a book, and the “leader” challenged me, asking “Why do you read so much?” Without hesitation I responded “Why don’t you?” The look of surprise and wonderment on her face was priceless!
Of her childhood Quindlen says “Yet there was always in me…the sense that I ought to be somewhere else.” Me too…I was a fish out of water in New Jersey, and it wasn’t until I discovered the west that I realized where I belonged. And, like Quindlen, I found my escape in books. I was able to travel to different lands, times, and cultures, and found some comfort in getting lost in my own mind. Unlike Quindlen, though, I have retained that desire to travel and explore other places physically, and have enjoyed doing so often.
And, like Quindlen, I was often assailed by others for my reading habits. Not just boyhood friends, but even a parent whose frequent grumblings I remember all too well: “Why don’t you do something other than read those stupid dime novels!” It didn’t have the intended effect…I’m still reading them, and enjoying them. Indeed, I learned as much about honor and courage and other things that matter in this life from those “stupid dime novels” as I did from anywhere else. I owe my heartfelt gratitude to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Louis L’Amour, Nephi Anderson, and many others.
Her book was published in 1998, long before the emergence of gadgets like the Kindle, the iPad, the Nook, and other e-book readers, but her brief commentary made me realize one reason why I shy away from those devices for most of my reading. The original form of the book was the codex, and it’s emergence was what took humanity away from scrolls as the primary means of conveying the written word. Scrolls essentially required a sequential approach to reading, while the codex allowed for what Quindlen calls a random approach. That is, with books as we now know them, one can flip rapidly back and forth through the book, easily search out desired passages or rapidly scan marginal notations or underlinings. That is much more difficult when sequential reading is the only option. Yet that is what e-book devices seem to have taken us back to, a sequential approach to reading. It assumes that the reader will read from beginning to end, which for many of us is not necessarily true. I remain hopeful that books, in their codex form, will stick around for a long time to come.
Quindlen makes the point (like Alan Jacobs in The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction) that “reading has as many functions as the human body, and not all of them are cerebral.” I’m pleased that some very smart and well-read people are finally beginning to make a case for the many bookworms among us who don’t necessarily thrive on a steady diet of the literary masters.
Quindlen concludes by making a compelling argument the continuation of books and reading. As she says, “[t]hrough them all we experience other times, other places, other lives. We manage to become much more than our own selves. The only dead are those who grow sere and shriveled within, unable to step outside their own lives and into those of others. Ignorance is death. A closed mind is a catafalque.”
Of her childhood Quindlen says “Yet there was always in me…the sense that I ought to be somewhere else.” Me too…I was a fish out of water in New Jersey, and it wasn’t until I discovered the west that I realized where I belonged. And, like Quindlen, I found my escape in books. I was able to travel to different lands, times, and cultures, and found some comfort in getting lost in my own mind. Unlike Quindlen, though, I have retained that desire to travel and explore other places physically, and have enjoyed doing so often.
And, like Quindlen, I was often assailed by others for my reading habits. Not just boyhood friends, but even a parent whose frequent grumblings I remember all too well: “Why don’t you do something other than read those stupid dime novels!” It didn’t have the intended effect…I’m still reading them, and enjoying them. Indeed, I learned as much about honor and courage and other things that matter in this life from those “stupid dime novels” as I did from anywhere else. I owe my heartfelt gratitude to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Louis L’Amour, Nephi Anderson, and many others.
Her book was published in 1998, long before the emergence of gadgets like the Kindle, the iPad, the Nook, and other e-book readers, but her brief commentary made me realize one reason why I shy away from those devices for most of my reading. The original form of the book was the codex, and it’s emergence was what took humanity away from scrolls as the primary means of conveying the written word. Scrolls essentially required a sequential approach to reading, while the codex allowed for what Quindlen calls a random approach. That is, with books as we now know them, one can flip rapidly back and forth through the book, easily search out desired passages or rapidly scan marginal notations or underlinings. That is much more difficult when sequential reading is the only option. Yet that is what e-book devices seem to have taken us back to, a sequential approach to reading. It assumes that the reader will read from beginning to end, which for many of us is not necessarily true. I remain hopeful that books, in their codex form, will stick around for a long time to come.
Quindlen makes the point (like Alan Jacobs in The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction) that “reading has as many functions as the human body, and not all of them are cerebral.” I’m pleased that some very smart and well-read people are finally beginning to make a case for the many bookworms among us who don’t necessarily thrive on a steady diet of the literary masters.
Quindlen concludes by making a compelling argument the continuation of books and reading. As she says, “[t]hrough them all we experience other times, other places, other lives. We manage to become much more than our own selves. The only dead are those who grow sere and shriveled within, unable to step outside their own lives and into those of others. Ignorance is death. A closed mind is a catafalque.”
Quick read, about her love of reading ... just loved it because I love finding my peeps who grew up and can't live without reading.