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books_and_cha 's review for:
How Reading Changed My Life
by Anna Quindlen
"Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home."
Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life is a collection of four essays on reading and all its joys and merits. The first one outlines how Quindlen first came to love books and how it marked her out as an oddity growing up. The second looks at a brief history of publishing and what the act of reading entails. The third explores a history of reading and what it has come to mean to us over the years, with an added criticism of literary elitism (bookish snobbery, as we like to call it). The last pokes fun at the despair that came around when ebooks became a thing, and defends the importance of experiencing a (physical) book.
Of course, this is a dry summary of some of the topics that Quindlen delves into in her book. What struck me, what endeared the book to me, was the love of books that Quindlen weaves into her essays. This is a book about books and about reading, but it is also a personal reflection of the self and how meaningful stories are. Throughout the book, Quindlen drops these thoughts that resonated with me, like this bit where she talks about how reading has so many purposes:
Most importantly, though, this book made me feel connected, not just to books and reading, but to the rest of the world who loves reading as much as I do. It created a human connection that reminded me, as books do, that I am not alone.
"All of reading is really only finding ways to name ourselves, and, perhaps, to name the others around us so that they will no longer seem like strangers. Crusoe and Friday. Ishmael and Ahab. Daisy and Gatsby. Pip and Estella. Me. Me. Me. I am not alone."
Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life is a collection of four essays on reading and all its joys and merits. The first one outlines how Quindlen first came to love books and how it marked her out as an oddity growing up. The second looks at a brief history of publishing and what the act of reading entails. The third explores a history of reading and what it has come to mean to us over the years, with an added criticism of literary elitism (bookish snobbery, as we like to call it). The last pokes fun at the despair that came around when ebooks became a thing, and defends the importance of experiencing a (physical) book.
Of course, this is a dry summary of some of the topics that Quindlen delves into in her book. What struck me, what endeared the book to me, was the love of books that Quindlen weaves into her essays. This is a book about books and about reading, but it is also a personal reflection of the self and how meaningful stories are. Throughout the book, Quindlen drops these thoughts that resonated with me, like this bit where she talks about how reading has so many purposes:
"So what does it mean, that Peyton Place by Grace Metalious sold more copies than Sanctuary by William Faulkner? It means that reading has as many functions as the human body, and that not all of them are cerebral. One is mere entertainment, the pleasurable whiling away of time; another is more important, not intellectual but serious just the same. 'She had learned something comforting,' Roald Dahl wrote in Matilda of his ever-reading protagonist, 'that we are not alone.' And if readers use words and stories as much, or more, to lessen human isolation as to expand human knowledge, is that somehow unworthy, invalid, and unimportant?"
Most importantly, though, this book made me feel connected, not just to books and reading, but to the rest of the world who loves reading as much as I do. It created a human connection that reminded me, as books do, that I am not alone.
"All of reading is really only finding ways to name ourselves, and, perhaps, to name the others around us so that they will no longer seem like strangers. Crusoe and Friday. Ishmael and Ahab. Daisy and Gatsby. Pip and Estella. Me. Me. Me. I am not alone."