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A review by okiecozyreader
How to Read a Book by Monica Wood
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
This was the perfect companion book to The Sing Sing Files, which I listened to this week. The cover and title are great, but they don’t really give you an idea what this book is about.
It is about a wonderful bookclub in a women’s prison, where Harriet (aka Bookie) brings books to the women and tries to find ones that resonate with them and help them to grow. She bonds with them (more than she should), and when Violet is released and they run into each other, she welcomes Violet back into the real world, when her own family doesn’t want anything to do with her.
It is such a lovely found family story for all of them - Harriet, Violet, and Frank Diagle, the husband of the woman in Violet’s accident, that sent her to jail.
It is also a beautiful love letter to parrots and how loving animals are, and the difference they make in our lives.
“Hard to believe that on Harriet’s first day as volunteer Book Club leader, these same twelve women had struck her as nearly identical. Of course that was the point of uniforms, to render the women interchangeable.
…
She could hear the women now, channeling voices dying to be heard.“ ch 3
“Books won’t solve my problems, Harriet.”
“No, but they give your problems perspective. They allow your problems to breathe.” Ch 9
“ The line between this and that, you and her, us and them, the line is thin.” Ch 11
“The writer writes the words. The given reader reads the words. And the book, the unique and unrepeatable book, doesn’t exist until the given reader meets the writer on the page.” Ch 26
“ She’d been raised to say yes, to agree and approve and adapt and accommodate, to step aside as the architect of her own happiness. After Lou’s death she vowed to say yes only when that yes belonged to her, solely to her. “ ch 30
“It’s what Harriet would call the meanwhile, the important thing that was happening while the rest of the story moved along.” Epitaph
It is about a wonderful bookclub in a women’s prison, where Harriet (aka Bookie) brings books to the women and tries to find ones that resonate with them and help them to grow. She bonds with them (more than she should), and when Violet is released and they run into each other, she welcomes Violet back into the real world, when her own family doesn’t want anything to do with her.
It is such a lovely found family story for all of them - Harriet, Violet, and Frank Diagle, the husband of the woman in Violet’s accident, that sent her to jail.
It is also a beautiful love letter to parrots and how loving animals are, and the difference they make in our lives.
“Hard to believe that on Harriet’s first day as volunteer Book Club leader, these same twelve women had struck her as nearly identical. Of course that was the point of uniforms, to render the women interchangeable.
…
She could hear the women now, channeling voices dying to be heard.“ ch 3
“Books won’t solve my problems, Harriet.”
“No, but they give your problems perspective. They allow your problems to breathe.” Ch 9
“ The line between this and that, you and her, us and them, the line is thin.” Ch 11
“The writer writes the words. The given reader reads the words. And the book, the unique and unrepeatable book, doesn’t exist until the given reader meets the writer on the page.” Ch 26
“ She’d been raised to say yes, to agree and approve and adapt and accommodate, to step aside as the architect of her own happiness. After Lou’s death she vowed to say yes only when that yes belonged to her, solely to her. “ ch 30
“It’s what Harriet would call the meanwhile, the important thing that was happening while the rest of the story moved along.” Epitaph