What do you think?
Rate this book
Reading in Bed: Personal Essays on the Glories of Reading
Twenty-two essays spanning five centuries, along with author notes and full bibliographies, provide an insight into one of humanity's greatest solitary diversions - reading.
160 pages, Paperback
First published December 20, 1995
6 people are currently reading
540 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
November 17, 2015
What do Emerson, Proust, Nabokov, and Calvino all have in common beyond the fact they were all great authors? They all wrote fascinating essays on the art of reading books. Steven Gilbar, a lawyer who is foremost a reader, selected and edited a delightful compilation of essays on books and reading for this tantalizing book, Reading in Bed. The essays range from those by classic authors like Montaigne, Hazlitt and Ruskin to modern notables like Marcel Proust, Henry Miller, Italo Calvino and Graham Greene. The entries from notable essayists include a couple of my favorites: Joseph Epstein and Sven Birkerts. The essay by Robertson Davies whose final paragraph is quoted above reminds me of the pleasure I have gained from rereading books that I love, most of which would be considered great. Some of those readings have been spaced out over my life while others have been bunched together in the several decades of my maturity. They include disparate writers and genres but all are books that I look forward to reading again. I have enjoyed rereading massive classics like War and Peace, Middlemarch and The Man Without Qualities along with smaller classics like Jane Eyre, The Razor's Edge and The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland.
The one thing all the essays share is a transcendence and the ability to trigger new insights into the text and its message for my life. These essays enlarge upon the experience of reading and act as a catalyst for further reading. The inclusion of a bibliography provides suggestions for further reading in the essays of these authors on subjects that are likely to be almost as interesting as that of reading. The compilation maintains a high level of excellence throughout without losing its entertainment value, at least for passionate and serious readers. I keep it by my bedside.
The one thing all the essays share is a transcendence and the ability to trigger new insights into the text and its message for my life. These essays enlarge upon the experience of reading and act as a catalyst for further reading. The inclusion of a bibliography provides suggestions for further reading in the essays of these authors on subjects that are likely to be almost as interesting as that of reading. The compilation maintains a high level of excellence throughout without losing its entertainment value, at least for passionate and serious readers. I keep it by my bedside.
March 23, 2008
Reading in Bed ed. by Steven Gilbar is one of the books I bought to read last year but haven’t read. So, I sat down with popcorn and water to read, refreshing my soul with winsome words and personal thoughts writ well in someone else’s essay. There were some thoughts I’d never had before as well. I copied them here if I thought they might be meaningful. I sometimes made a comment.
They were excellent and I have enjoyed reading the selections chosen by Mr. Gilbar. But it’s too meaty a work to breeze through in an evening.
For additional comments on this book, see my blog posts here, here, here, here, here, and here.
They were excellent and I have enjoyed reading the selections chosen by Mr. Gilbar. But it’s too meaty a work to breeze through in an evening.
For additional comments on this book, see my blog posts here, here, here, here, here, and here.
April 12, 2015
"There is also that kind of reading which is just looking at books. From time to time - I can't say what dictates the impulse - I pull up a chair in front of a section of my library. An expectant tranquility settles over me. I move my eyes slowly, reading the spines..."
Hallelujah, vilken skön samling belletrister!
Hallelujah, vilken skön samling belletrister!
March 25, 2019
Magnificent! For anyone whose reading life takes up a significant part of their everyday life. It was so pleasant to be in the company of writers who think deeply about reading and chose to share their thoughts with us: praise for reading, challenges, confessions . . . it was all there. Some essays didn't resonate with me as much, but others had me wondering how a stranger could have slipped so effortlessly into my brain to interpret my thoughts and then publish them in a book. Lots of underlining, laughing, and nodding going on while reading this one.
Also, I found this at the Depot Bookstore in Mill Valley on a discount shelf, so my purchase was totally random and spontaneous. What a delightful surprise it turned out to be.
Also, I found this at the Depot Bookstore in Mill Valley on a discount shelf, so my purchase was totally random and spontaneous. What a delightful surprise it turned out to be.
November 12, 2021
Couldn't have asked for more. A delightful collection of essays, celebrating the act and art of reading by writers of different temperaments. Each essay is an invitation for unfettered indulgence, presently in the essay and then in the promised world of books. Highly recommended.
November 8, 2019
Some of the essays were great, some were so booooring.
October 15, 2019
Though the essays were interesting, they did not speak to me. I am not a learned reader who only wants improving books by the 'best' writers. It seemed to me that every single author of these essays was exhorting the reader to only read 'good books' or books that are 'good' for you. It is not how I read and I don't like reading writers that put me down because I don't conform to their narrow view of what reading should encompass. That I am lesser because I read 'trash'. I am not ashamed of what I read..my reading covers a spectrum and I acknowledge when a book is too highbrow and defeats me. There are classics I want to read that I might not live long enough to get to but reside on my Kindle waiting..just in case I get a brainstorm...like Gibbon's Decline and Fall. I have given up on Proust..his language is beautiful but the story bores me and the people irritate me. I loved Moby Dick but not enough to reread it and I am a rereader. So, this was an a look into the minds of people like: Thoreau, Proust, Robert L. Stevenson, Henry Miller, Emerson, Nabokov, Robertson Davies, Graham Greene...I have read at least one book by each of them and so appreciate them as writers but I do not necessarily hold with their personal opinions on reading.
August 6, 2023
This is a rich collection of essays on reading. As a reader, it warms my heart to find kindred spirits in numerous well-known literary figures--although I want to jettison the more snooty contributors. Isn't that what we all long for? To know that we are not alone in our pursuits, especially considering that the majority of our acquaintances do not read any deeper than a short text on an e-device.
January 3, 2017
Interesting, often contradictory essays (not internally but rather among the different writers) brought down by ghastly copy-editing, particularly in the Brodkey essay. "Engraged" is not a word.
July 24, 2020
Some great pearls that make me feel less weird about my own relationship with reading. A few of the early writings are a little too removed from modern modalities of writing to feel relevant. Would love an update that includes more varied perspectives (e.g. POC, immigrant, LGBTQIA+ authors). We’ve got the white guy perspective covered here.
April 14, 2025
If you can't find yourself a copy, I do recommend looking up these couple essays:
1.) Michel de Montaigne, The Commerce of Reading
2.) John Ruskin, Of Kings' Treasuries
3.) Hermann Hesse, The Magic of the Book
4.) Henry Miller, To Read or Not to Read
5.) Italo Calvino, Why Read the Classics?
1.) Michel de Montaigne, The Commerce of Reading
2.) John Ruskin, Of Kings' Treasuries
3.) Hermann Hesse, The Magic of the Book
4.) Henry Miller, To Read or Not to Read
5.) Italo Calvino, Why Read the Classics?
April 19, 2009
Recommended by Fadiman in Ex Libris. It was the winner of the Critics Choice Award several years aog and is an anthology of essays written about books and reading. The list of writers whose essays are included are quite diverse, including Thoreau, Emerson, Stevenson, and Proust.
"In my beginning was the word. I am one who is made up in part by all that I have read. We may be endangered species in this age of non-books and aliteracy, but we endure."
"Books do not leave the reader what he was; he shuts the book a richer man. I would never willingly read any others than such."
Emerson
"Among the many worlds that man did not receive as a gift from nature but created out of his own mind, the world of books is the greatest. Without the word, without the writing of books, there is no history, no concept of humanity." Hesse
"Every true reader could, even if not one new book was published, spend decades and centuries studying on, fighting on, continuing to rejoice in the treasure of those already at hand." Hesse
"In my beginning was the word. I am one who is made up in part by all that I have read. We may be endangered species in this age of non-books and aliteracy, but we endure."
"Books do not leave the reader what he was; he shuts the book a richer man. I would never willingly read any others than such."
Emerson
"Among the many worlds that man did not receive as a gift from nature but created out of his own mind, the world of books is the greatest. Without the word, without the writing of books, there is no history, no concept of humanity." Hesse
"Every true reader could, even if not one new book was published, spend decades and centuries studying on, fighting on, continuing to rejoice in the treasure of those already at hand." Hesse
April 6, 2008
Good selection of essays about the joys of reading - One, by Clifton Fadiman called "Pillow Books", addresses the kinds of books he thinks should be read in bed..."the best bed books are those that deny the existence of tomorrow. To read in bed is to draw around us invisible, noiseless curtains. Then at last we are in a room of our own and are ready to burrow back, back, back to that private life of the imagination we all led as children and to whose secret satisfactions too many of us have mislaid the key...."
The picture on the cover is marvelous.
The picture on the cover is marvelous.
August 4, 2013
This mixed bag of personal essays spans authors from Montaigne to Birkerts. They range from 4-star delights - such as Elkin's memories of where he was when he read influential pieces, Schwartz's confessions about the temptation to fudge your reading, and Birkerts' reliably perceptive comments about the slightly illicit compulsion to read voraciously and sometimes indiscriminately - to barely tolerable 2-star pieces and pedestrian 3-star efforts.
January 5, 2016
A book that I recently acquired for practically nothing because it spoke of the most basic passion that drives me. Some of the essays were rather dense, some lighthearted. The contributors were equally divided between people whose names I knew and people I have never heard of before. I was a little let down by Grahame Greene's piece, but then immediately bouyed up again whe Robertson Davies began his by saying "Grahame Greene makes me feel foolish." I really need to read more by Davies.
August 9, 2016
Really starting to look like anthology month around here. Rather spotty collection of essays about reading (and not at all about about reclined perusing), from William Hazlitt’s always delightful “On Reading Old Books” (which I’ve read in at least three different versions over the years — I wonder if he reused his titles …) to some impenetrable musing from Proust.
December 3, 2014
Some essays are better than others, but the good ones shine. A really nice anthology by authors who are readers, including but not limited to Thoreau, Emerson, Bowen, Greene, Stevenson, Nobokov, Birkerts!
Read
September 20, 2008Delightful essays...
September 5, 2015
This is hard to rate because I LOVED some essays and didn't think others deserved the time I gave them. Altogether the great outweighed the terrible.
October 24, 2016
Again in 2001.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews