about reading

In the last few days I've read two books about reading, both of which I highly recommend: William Deresiewicz's A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter, and Nina Sankovitch's Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading. Both authors combine their love of reading (Sankovitch read a book a day for a year) with personal memoir. I woke up this morning flooded with thoughts of momentous occasions in my life and what books I was reading at the time (Joyce Carol Oates's Them, Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter). I remembered two summers ago when I was so sick that I lay in bed and read all of War and Peace, unable to do anything else.

In a recent post and comment, my friend Beverly and I shared the feeling that writing = breath. For me, reading does the same. "Do you read when you're writing?" Yes. I can't in fact imagine a life without books, books, and more books.

What about you?

Comments

  1. Bethany,
    Reading in bed, fresh cup of coffee and letting someone else sweep the kitchen floor, what a joy.
    Just started Billy Collins, "horoscopes for the dead". He has a wonderful poem about baldness and maternal grandfathers. I remember my own bald grandfather and his wife yelling at him, "I'm going to smash this pie on your shiny bald head if you don't straighten up."

    In my haste to leave the office I've lost access to your email account.
    Would you send it to me. grnitpauls@earthlink.net
    Paul

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