Tracey's review
How Reading Changed My Life (Library of Contemporary Thought)
by Anna Quindlen
Tracey's review
How Reading Changed My Life (Library of Contemporary Thought) by Anna Quindlen
Tracey's review
rating:
bookshelves:
libraryread
I believe this was a recommendation from Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader - at any rate, I checked this slim volume out from the library & devoured it in less than an hour.
Quindlen looks at her relationship with books, believing that her dissatisfaction with her life (albeit a safe, suburban childhood) spurred her interest in reading, as books could take her to other places and other times, and allow her to meet fascinating people. She feels as if she really gets to know the characters; and I concur - Arthur Dent and Samuel Vimes seem in some ways, as real to me as childhood friends or internet acquaintances.
She also discusses the general attitude towards "bookworms", how she was exposed to the larger world of literature through a family friend and how reading, especially reading fiction, seems to serve a different role for women than for men, perhaps typifie...more
Quindlen looks at her relationship with books, believing that her dissatisfaction with her life (albeit a safe, suburban childhood) spurred her interest in reading, as books could take her to other places and other times, and allow her to meet fascinating people. She feels as if she really gets to know the characters; and I concur - Arthur Dent and Samuel Vimes seem in some ways, as real to me as childhood friends or internet acquaintances.
She also discusses the general attitude towards "bookworms", how she was exposed to the larger world of literature through a family friend and how reading, especially reading fiction, seems to serve a different role for women than for men, perhaps typifie...more
