I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life

by Anne Bogel

You’re looking for a book that reminds you why you read in the first place. One written well and that will feel like it was written just for you—one that will make you think about things in a new way, or feel things you didn’t expect a book to make you feel, or see things in a new light. A book you won’t want to put down, whose characters you don’t want to tell good-bye. A book you will close feeling satisfied and grateful, thinking, Now, that was a good one.

To hand you a great book, I don’t just need to know about books; I need to know you.

How good it is to be among people who are reading.

Can every devoted reader point back to the book that hooked them on the story? I’d like to think so. Not a book they appreciate, or grudgingly respect, but the one that captivated them, the one they didn’t want to put down, the one that made them decide, for themselves, to make reading a part of their life, forever.

A good book allows me to step into another world, to experience people and places and situations foreign to my own day-to-day existence. I love experiencing the new, the novel, the otherwise impossible—especially when I can do it from my own comfy chair.

if my real life reminds me of something I read in a book, I’m reading well—and I’m probably living well, too.

You’re a book lover; you don’t have enough shelves to begin with. Ignore the decorators.

“I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.” We are readers. This is how we decorate.

Your house is a disaster because books cover every surface. Your house is a disaster because a clean house is a sign of a misspent life, and you spend yours reading.

A good book, when we return to it, will always have something new to say. It’s not the same book, and we’re not the same reader.

But reading is also a social act: readers love to connect over good books.