How Reading Changed My Life,   ISBN:9780345422781

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Anna Quindlen has written an amazing little book for book-lovers everywhere. She touches on subjects many of us bibliphiles are familiar with--our beloved books from childhood and how our opinions of them change, the need for a physical book in your hand (as opposed to an e-reader), and the stereotype that we as voracious readers are loners, weird, or lazy. Even if you don't love to read, I can only imagine that this book would encourage you to and change your mind. I felt the book was the perfect size at 82 pages---the writing was clear, beautiful and nothing was overdone or pontificated on for too long. Yet that being said, her writing left me wanting more of it! That is the mark of a truly great book I think. I also loved her top 10 lists at the back.

I have to share this quote that ends the book which I loved (and it was hard to choose one!):

"Perhaps it is true that at base we readers are dissatisfied people, yearning to be elsewhere, to live vicariously through words in a way we cannot live directly through life. Perhaps we are the world's greatest nomads, if only in our minds. I travel today in the way I once dreamed of traveling as a child. And the irony is I don't care for it very much. I am the sort of person who prefers to stay at home, surrounded by family, friends, familiarity, books. This is what I like about traveling: the time on airplanes spent reading, solitary, happy. It turns out that when my younger self thought of taking wing, she wanted only to let her spirit soar. Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home." (page 70).

A quick must-read!

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This is a nice little book that any lover of reading will relate to. The motivation and adventure of reading and the comfort of a book are extolled, and Quindlen reflects on her history as a lover of the written word. My only grievance was in her discussion of technology and its eventual submission of the physical book. Written in 1998, it is a bit out dated, as electronic reading technology has evolved tremendously in the last 11 years. However, I was extremely pleased that Quindlen included a few Top 10 book lists in the back, knowing readers well enough to fulfill their appetite for reading lists.

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After eighteen years of being stereotyped as "the book worm," it's good to know that there's others out there like me. I agree wholeheartedly with Quindlen about the effect of books on life and on many of her other points. Her small book is simple but true. I can't wait to explore some of the books on her reading lists that I've not yet read. I recommend this to all of the other bookworms in the world: you are not alone, and at least one person understands you.

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Thus, Anna Quindlen quotes Charles Dickens' biographer, John Forster, in this slim and wonderful book. Apparently, Dickens, Quindlen, and I would all rather read than play or do almost anything else.

I adore this book because it reminds me that there are other people for whom reading goes way beyond a pass-time or even something that we "love" to do. In addition to life's other milestones, we can mark the phases of life with the books that we have read, devoured, and assimilated. Like Quindlen, I remember a childhood influenced by writers like Ogden Nash, Carl Sandburg, Lore Segal, Irene Smith, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Louisa May Alcott, Johanna Spyri, Carolyn Keene, Judy Blume, Betty Smith, and many others who are less clear in my memory but who shaped who I have become and what I have loved to read.

Quindlen reminded me that I am not the only one who is often biding time until my next chance to read. Of course, I read in line at the post office, in a doctor's waiting room, in airports, and at professional sporting events. More telling is that from age 11 or so, I regularly took a novel to church. I sat in the back pew, out of my family's sight, so that I could read the book instead of listen to sermons and hymns. Quindlen knows that many of us have eased the tedium and discomfort of the here and now by going wherever a book will take us.

I suppose that I love this book because she puts my understanding of books, as guidance, sustenance and salvation, into words. I feel validated. My way of being in this world has been endorsed and upheld. I feel good.

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Quindlen writes about her experiences with being a bibliophile, ranging from discussing why fiction is worthwhile to what makes banned books so interesting to a critique of the snobbery of the literary critics. Her tangents are insightful and resonate with the trends I see in reading; for example, she characterizes the shift from reading for pleasure to reading for purpose: "whereas an executive might learn far more from Moby Dick ..., the book he was expected to have read might be The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People [sic]". I loved and identified with her descriptions of growing up obsessed with reading, having spent most childhood afternoons among the stacks of the local public library.

This isn't as good as Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris (on the same topic), but it's thoughtful and quick. (I read it in about two hours.) She specifically deals with why she believes women read more than men. She also provides a number of interesting book lists at the end, ranging from "The 10 Books I Would Save in a Fire (If I Could Save Only 10)" to "10 Mystery Novels I'd Most Like to Find in a Summer Rental."