Ruined By Reading: A Life in Books

by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

A Los Angeles Times Book Review Best Book of 1996.

'Without books how could I have become myself?' In this wonderfully written meditation, Lynne Sharon Schwartz offers deeply felt insight into why we read and how what we read shapes our lives. An enchanting celebration of the printed word.

Genres: Books About Books, Nonfiction, Memoir, Essays, Biography, Literature, Writing

119 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 1996

About the author

Lynne Sharon Schwartz (b. 1939) is a celebrated author of novels, poems, short fiction, and criticism. Schwartz began her career with a series of short stories before publishing her first novel, the National Book Award–nominated Rough Strife (1980). She went on to publish works of memoir, poetry, and translation. Her other novels have included the award-nominated Leaving Brooklyn (1989) and Disturbances in the Field (1983). Her short fiction has appeared in theBest American Short Stories annual anthology series several times. In addition, her reviews and criticism have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers. Schwartz lives in New York City, and is currently a faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Reviews

[Julie (jjmachshev) · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a self-confessed readaholic, I was immediately drawn to "Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books" by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. What did the author mean by this title? What would her story be about? Who could consider reading a ruination of life? After asking myself these questions, I, of course, HAD to get the book.

While reading Schwartz's book, I felt wrapped up in a warm blanket. So many times, I thought "Wow. That's me." Without preaching, Schwartz understands and imparts in circular thought how those of us who read almost compulsively and obsessively feel. The story of her love affair with books in some ways reflects how I feel about my reading and it was nice to realize that I'm not alone in my 'illness'.

In the end, I think the title is meant to grab the attention of those who will appreciate its sometimes sharp and biting humor and irony. Everything we read changes us in some small or not so small way. And those of us who read in volume do indeed live 'a life in books'.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.5) This 1996 memoir was sparked by reading a quote from a Chinese Buddhist in a New York Times article: he suggested that reading is dangerous as it imposes others’ ideas on you and doesn’t allow you to use your own mind freely. Schwartz, of course, begs to differ. As a novelist, reading has been her lifeline. She looks back at her childhood reading and her pretentious college student opinions on Franz Kafka and Henry James, and explains that she lets serendipity guide her reading choices nowadays, rather than a strict TBR list: “reading at random – letting desire lead – feels like the most faithful kind.”

It’s a bibliomemoir; I should have loved it. Instead I thought it unstructured and thin. There are some great lines dotted through, but I wasn’t very interested in the examples she focuses on. Five pages about a children’s book by Eleanor Farjeon? Yawn!

Favorite passages:

“Like the bodies of dancers or athletes, the minds of readers are genuinely happy and self-possessed only when cavorting around, doing their stretches and leaps and jumps to the tune of words.”

“How are we to spend our lives, anyway? That is the real question. We read to seek the answer, and the search itself – the task of a lifetime – becomes the answer.”

Recently reviewed, along with five other novellas, on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

For many years, my passion for reading was considered by others to be a waste of time, a nuisance, a light weight hobby. However, I knew that my love for the written word was an essential part of my being, without which I would not be the person I am - or was.

This is one of the reasons why I loved Ruined By Reading: A Life in Books. Lynne Sharon Schwartz explores her own life in reading and in doing so reveals some of my own feelings and thoughts. I believe there are three "beings" involved when we open a book. There is me, the reader, a unique person; there is the book, which may have been read by thousands of others and then there is the writer - again, a unique being, sharing some of their innermost thoughts and experience. It is this amazing, unique coming together which fuels my passion for reading. This is just one aspect of reading that the author explores in her short, but powerful memoir.

I am very glad that I own this book, as it's one which will warrant several readings.

[Jennine G. (Living On Purpose) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books, by Lynne Sharon Schwartz, is a memoir about how her life was affected by books and reading. It may seem silly to so enjoy a book that is about reading, but to hear your own thoughts and feelings on a subject you so dearly love written by a woman who was born at the onset of WWII - 40 years before you - is the ultimate "I'm not alone!" feeling. (Of course, my book buddies are good for this too ;)

Schwartz talks about her avid readership starting at age 3. She found much of her thoughts and wonders about herself and life confirmed through stories she encountered. Books taught her lessons and one she points out in this memoir I can relate to...Passion. And I don't mean passion as in a love of something, but passion as in exploding and freaking out about stuff. Not only can I relate to it, but it is a current revelation in my personal life. I've been reading books on the topic, trying to make changes in myself for about four months. In her favorite childhood book, The Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1905. You may better recognize her book The Secret Garden), the main character Sara is thrust into many situations with a loud and intimidating adult. Being a child there isn't much she can do, but even with feelings bouncing inside, this is the wisdom the character Sara imparts to the reader:

"I don't answer very often. I never answer when I can help it. When people are
insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to say a word - just look at
them and think...When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger
than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage...There's nothing
so strong as rage except what makes you hold it in - that's stronger" (49).

Talking about how reading this affected her, Schwartz relates her personal experience: "I heard a great deal of rage - vocal and terrifying - when I was small; in a way my household was not what I could call ordinary. And I thought rage must be powerful. It was certainly loud. I have spent the rest of my life learning that loudness is not a show of strength, and that the spirit is kept alive by trust in the inner voice and by holding firmly to the unnamed thing that Sara found at age eleven: the stronger thing that makes you hold rage in" (49-50).

And on another note, Schwartz and I share a common memory problem, which she discusses in her memoir. Neither of us can remember what we read last week in any amount of worthwhile detail. I've always lamented this. Schwartz thinks through the reasoning of reading in light of this fact. If reading is not the main transformation of life (after all characters can be pretty messed up people), and not the amassing of knowledge (because she forgets the details of content soon after), and not to pass time (there are so many ways to do that more actively/quickly), then reading has to be for the opposite reason...to live and be still in the moment.

She describes it as "unlike other classic activities of the moment...in reading, the body is still. Indeed what reading teaches, first and foremost, is how to sit still for long periods and confront time head-on. The dynamism is all inside, an exalted, spiritual exercise so utterly engaging that we forget time and mortality along with all of life's lesser woes, and simply bask in the everlasting present. So I see, finally, why it hardly matters whether I remember the contents of a book. Mere information is nothing compared to this silent flurry" (115-116).

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too many people have set up their responses to reading. At one end is the disillusioned student, proud to portray a dislike of reading as one of their few independent achievements: "Reading is boring" they say using the vocabulary picked up by one who doesn't read. At the other end is the vacuous airhead who, equally stunted in choices to make on the verbal paradigmatic axis, opts for faux affectation and words that end in "holic". "I'm a readaholic!" they croon. Or ""I'm a bookoholic". They'd claim to be happy only in their reading; that they would rest on a spike on an Andean plateau if only they were able to read. "It doesn't matter which one, just so long as its the next."

"Reading is good for you" is the bumper sticker. It's backed up by all of those stagey posters you find in English school libraries of Ryan Giggs of Manchester United or Frank Lampard of Chelsea (these posters are rarely up to date but claim a "down-with-the-kids" sort of authenticity reminiscent of the embarrassing uncle dancing to Tupac at a wedding) pretending to read a book.

There's a huge (though half-hearted) drive towards promoting reading that doesn't work. Reading, like going to church or the theatre, is kept alive by a few. The many are actually put off by the evangelists. It doesn't help that many of the evangelisers are English teachers who don't read much themselves.

I've read a few books about reading over the last year or so. Most don't question the value of reading; take it's worth as a given; and end up being tedious autobiographical boasts of how the author had "a book-a-day habit" as a child and that reading made them the person they are today: namely, a bit of a wind-bag.

This one is different. It challenges the validity and usefulness of reading as an activity. It challenges it in a way that is both rigorous and entertaining. This here is a truthful book; not a boasting book. It asks reading to explain and justify itself. It's written by someone who knows a bit about life and has gone through the different stages (including the stage of finding reading boring and the one where reading is going to make complete sense of the world). Someone who has other interests; I engaged in the book during the section where she talks about a passion for baseball.

It doesn't come up with a whole lot of answers; and the ones it does come up with are ones you could have managed for yourself. But it does engage with a whole lot of interesting questions.

It's a short book. It feels like a bloody good key-note speech at the start of a conference on reading. It will (and has) upset a few people (but why come to the conference with a closed mind?) I wouldn't say my mind is entirely open but this book has certainly broken up the deposits of acceptance and got me thinking.

I'm like the author and am a slow reader who can have forgotten a great deal about a book I read last week. I don't know how much of this book will still be stimulating my thoughts this time next year. But its got me asking questions and questioning assumptions.

I think I'll keep it on the middle shelf because I think I'm probably going to be reading this book again.



* Note to Self: The opposite of The Child that Books Made. Intelligent, experienced, opening out debate, questioning, engaging; at times very funny; and a darned good book. (None of which are true of the Francis Spofford)

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is less a book than one long essay reflecting on reading and life and memory. Schwartz begins with a quote from a Chinese Buddhist scholar who said "To read more is a handicap. It is better to keep your own mind free and to not let the thinking of others interfere with your own free thinking." She then takes this quote with her and reacts to it as she evaluates her lifetime of reading. I always love to compare my own reading to those of "book-book" authors; like Schwartz, I began reading very young, did most of my reading outside of school, and we read many of the same books and poems when young.
Some tidbits I especially enjoyed:
Schwartz posits that the reason many of us have trouble with operating modern electronic devices is that the reader's mind runs on narrative, and devices don't. She has a hilarious "narrative" her daughter wrote called "Instructions for a Happy VCR". Hey, I like this idea better than just blaming my age.
Loved this quote: [Reading] didn't replace living; it infused it, till the two became inextricable, like molecules of hydrogen and oxygen in a bead of water. (ok, she means ATOMS, but still)
Another: There is nothing to match the affinity of people who were defined and nourished by the same book, who shared a fantasy life.
More: Maybe the words on the page are not even the true book, in the end, only a gateway to the book that recreates itself in the mind and lasts as long as we do.
I loved her reflection when one of her children learned how to read: "And so the younger one was launched on the perilous journey, crossing the bridge that can never be recrossed. I could only watch as mothers do when children leave home to seek their fortune, knowing that from now on her adventures would be beyond my ken, I could neither protect nor accompany her. The written word was about to carry her off like the tornado took Dorothy." I'm not sure I totally agree--I did try to "accompany" my children a bit by reading TO them, and still do--but I do know (actually, I hope and pray) that they have their own internal relationship with books that I know little about.
I liked this thought on book lists and choosing books: Months, even years, go by. I return to my list to find I've read perhaps a third of the books on it, not bad, under the circumstances. But by then I am a new person, with a new list under way. The unread books get carried over, and over, until eventually I cross them out. They are no longer necessary. I can hardly recall what allure they held for the person I used to be.
And this on reading randomly: Or perhaps randomness is not so random after all. Perhaps at every stage what we read is what we are, or what we are becoming, or desire.
Loved this sentence, she is discussing "public" speech like that by news anchors and politicians: "Have any of them, lately, spoken a sentence bearing the shape of the thought that inspired it?" This seemed a very Charlotte Mason thing to say.
This was thoughtful, contemplative, slow, delightful.

[James Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that I expected to like more than I ultimately did. It seemed like two books: one book is about reading books and the impact of that reading on one's life, and the other is about the obsessions of a young girl with books like Little Women and The Little Princess. The latter aspect of this book I found interesting as a sociological or psychological statement about young girls but not as a statement about the nature and impact of reading. We all have our obsessions as readers and some, like those of the author, started at a young age. I have read and reread books like Jane Eyre and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland my whole life, but they have changed as I have grown and matured, just as my interest in books has changed.
Ruined by Reading provides an interesting narrative introduction to reading a variety of books. For those, like myself, who enjoy reading books about books that would be recommendation enough. The discussion of the importance of style and the difference between books in which style is preeminent and those that rely on plot and perhaps an exciting character or two is informative. But I cannot say the same about the digressions into details of some books which are of marginal interest or discussions of movie versions of books that the author has not read.
In spite of these aspects of this short book I did enjoy reading about the impact of reading on the author's life even if I found that it was neither ruinous nor enchanting.

[Antonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, though at first I thought it could have been better. Perhaps that means I just wanted it to be more relevant to my own experience. There was a lot about specific books (that I haven't read). It's a long rambling essay that could have been improve by some organization and section headings. But I liked it more the further I read. I found much to savor, highlight, and copy out. I enjoyed the musings on what we ought to read versus what we want to read, and how oughts are often foisted on us — faux wants. The book made me want to write my own personal history of reading — if only for myself.

(Also enjoyed the meat grinder story. My mother and grandmother both had them. So I inherited one — and actually use it.)

I don't at all agree with her re the issue of text vs. subtext. She seems to think this is a useless dichotomy that should not be applied to writing at all. She says, "All fully realized works are about exactly what they are about." Well, yes, but. A fully realized work of literature can be read on many levels. A fully realized work is one in which the levels are interwoven in such a way that they work with and against one another, so that the work adds up to more than the sum of its parts. There is always a surface and a subsurface. Good fiction is almost always that way. The story we read and the emotional story we feel. The former has a rising, then a falling action. The latter has a falling, then a rising action. Moreover, a literary work, whether fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, cannot be fully realized without a reader. And every reader brings something different to the reading. Thus, a work is not static, does not mean one thing and not another. Its meaning depends on what is brought to it.

I disagree with her on the matter of dreams, too — that "dream images and events are not 'really' what the dream is about [that part I agree with], but the available detritus of the day, slyly adapted to shield the dream's actual 'meaning.'" This implies that the dream has some inherent meaning other than what the dreamer concocts to explain its images. In a manner similar to what happens with reading, it's the dreamer who brings the meaning to the dream.

A few quotes I like:

"How are we to spend our lives, anyway? That is the real question. We read to seek the answer, and the search itself – the task of a lifetime – becomes the answer." p, 13

"For here is the essence of true reading: learning to live in another's voice, to speak another's language. Reading is escape — why not admit it? — but not from job or troubles. It is escape from the boundaries of our own voices and idioms." p111-112

"Still more remarkable, these inky marks generate emotion, even give the illusion of containing emotion, while it is we who contribute the emotion. Yet it was there an advance too, in the writer. What a feat of transmission: the motive powers of the book, with no local habitation, pass safely from the writer to reader, unmangled by printing and binding and shipping, renewed and available whenever we open it." p. 117

"If we make books happen, they make us happen as well. Reading teaches receptivity. Keats's negative capability. It teaches us to receive, in stillness and attentiveness, a voice possessed temporarily, on loan. The speaker lends  herself and we do the same, a mutual and ephemeral exchange, like love. Yet unlike love, reading is a pure activity. It will gain us nothing but enchantment of the heart. And as we grow accustomed to receiving books in stillness and attentiveness, so we can grow to receive the world, also possessed temporarily, also enchanting the heart." p. 118

[Christine Zibas · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are books that you race through, anxious to see what happens next, to learn where the storyline will take you. Then there are books that are meant to be savored, drawn out slowly to enjoy their mastery of the written word. It’s only fitting that a book like “Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books” by Lynne Sharon Schwartz should be one of the latter.

The first thing that makes a reader want to undertake this longish essay (with no chapter breaks, unhappily) is its title. Anyone who loves to read, who adores books, and is likely to be drawn to read a book on just that subject will likely find the title confusing. How can anyone be ruined by something so wonderful? The paradox is finally revealed, although not until very far along in the story. Revealing the secret is not something that anyone who actually plans to read this book will want to know ahead of time, but suffice it to say, the event that leads the author to conclude such a thing is intertwined with family events.

So, too, is much of the book, which is what gives reading its power. Even when one is talking about a “classic” a book so designated as something worthy of reading by all, not everyone will read a particular book. Reading is a very individual pursuit. It is shaped by what the reader brings to the book as much as it shapes the reader after. Schwartz talks about those books recommended by friends which languish on her shelves unread. Or those she felt compelled to buy because of a review she read. “I should have bought the reviewer’s book,” she laments.

For reading is a gamble. It’s hard to determine just what a book can give a reader or whether that brilliant cover is merely a good sales job for a bad product. And why are books that contain such treasures (like Modern Library classics) wrapped in covers so subdued as to make them seem positively dull, when in fact, they are just the opposite?

As you can see, there is much to contemplate in the arguments and history documented here of Schwartz’s own life with books. It’s amazing to me that she can remember so much about her early life (learning to read, being a prodigy whose parents have her read from the “New York Times” for friends). However, I did find myself returning to warm childhood memories. Another enjoyable aspect to the book is how the books fit the author’s life, yet do not insert feelings of guilt in the reader that they may not have had the same reading list growing up or as an adult. In other words, this is guilt-free reading, not the type of book that has you creating a long list of books you “should” have read by now.

That is the wonder of “Ruined by Reading.” The author makes you appreciate your own experience and suggests that “reading is escape-why not admit it?” It’s not such a bad thing to put our own lives and worries aside for awhile and take up a new life and thoughts via a book. In fact, it can be quite wonderful.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bibliophiles will cherish this book, charmed as I was by its writing and the intense love affair with the printed word that its author describes. Not only does she share important memories from her own early reading days, but she also mentions writers and books that have had an impact on her and the adult she became. For Schwartz, as for many of us, reading and writing go hand in hand, and readers often become better writers by soaking in the genius of the authors whose books they read. Although reading is a solitary act, it is also, for many of us, a social act since it connects us to ideas, times, and individuals, and helps us understand ourselves and the world around us. As I read her book, I couldn't resist thinking back to those books that have mattered to me during a lifetime of reading, some of which mattered only briefly and others than still stay with me, influencing my current behavior, and even my current reading habits. Many college instructors require their students to write their own reading or literacy biographies. This one might serve as an exemplar or as a place to start. I smiled at almost every line and basked in the authors from whom Schwartz quotes. Ruined by reading? I'd gladly have my life ruined or changed by books than any other pursuit I've ever had. As I read, I felt that my passion was honored, validated, and that I was in the company of a kindred spirit.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahhh. As C.S. Lewis says, we read to know we are not alone.

This book is not for everyone. It really isn't a book, at all. It is a glorious love letter to the written word, to how the books that come into your life at various times change, shape, enrich it, their words stitching themselves into the fabric of your soul till you don't know which pieces are yours and which ones were left there by Charles Dickens or Dr. Seuss.

As such--if your bookshelf has more books on it than you will ever read, and a stack on the floor in front of it besides; if the contents of that bookshelf transcend such petty labels as "Juvenile," "Classic," "Fantasy," "Children's," "Book Club," and Laurie Halse Anderson snuggles comfortably between Douglas Adams and Jane Austen; if you can write your favorite book from memory and still find joy in re-reading it every year; if you have left your house without your wallet but remembered to bring something to read; if when out on a Friday night you have been distracted by the ghost of the fat new novel on your night-table at home--this volume will speak to you.

If none of these sound applicable to you or even reasonable, then congratulations on maintaining your sanity, but don't bother picking this one up. This book is strictly an indulgence for the hopeless cases.

[Chris (thebookaholic) Padgett · Rating 2 out of 5]

In many ways this was a philosophical presentation by Schwartz on the importance of literature/ writing/ reading in her life. A biography which allowed for many “soap box” ramblings, musings and analysis. I found the book, not “text”, to be okay.
Because I am one who enjoys reading books about books, or even works by others discussing why they love books, this second hand piece was picked up on a recent visit to half priced books in Pittsburgh, PA. I did like many of her insights concerning the beauty of the written word, and I can also relate with her struggle on which book to read next; facing the 'ought' to read pile and the 'want' to read pile with a tense expectancy. There were occasional reflections on classic literary works which I would have liked to have read more about. She is extremely bright, a master of the written word, and very well read. I think she would have been a striking professor and critic, and possibly she is that already. She has other works in print so it may be worthwhile investigating Schwartz’s other works to get a different take on her style.

[Anna Louise Kallas · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a self-confessed readaholic, I was immediately drawn to "Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books" by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. What did the author mean by this title? What would her story be about? Who could consider reading a ruination of life? After asking myself these questions, While reading Schwartz's book, I felt wrapped up in a warm blanket. So many times, I thought "Wow. That's me." Without preaching, Schwartz understands and imparts in circular thought how those of us who read almost compulsively and obsessively feel. The story of her love affair with books in some ways reflects how I feel about my reading and it was nice to realize that I'm not alone in my 'illness'. In the end, I think the title is meant to grab the attention of those who will appreciate its sometimes sharp and biting humor and irony. Everything we read changes us in some small or not so small way. And those of us who read in volume do indeed live 'a life in books'.

[Marjorie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1996, but new to me when I stumbled across it in a used bookstore in Yellow Springs, Ohio a few weeks back, I had to pick this one up, if only for the title. Reading has certainly ruined me for any other occupation, and there is no escape: Happily, I am not looking for escape, with the obvious exception of the escape into a really good book.

I enjoyed the book, but unless you are also "ruined" there is no reason for you to read this. If you are, you may enjoy it. If not, skip on to something else (unless you are trying to understand the readers in your life, and need some help).

Keeping in mind that this was written when the web was new, and before Google, iPhones, YouTube, etc., this passage that I am about to quote struck me as a prescient indictment of the horrid world imposed on us by Apple user interface designers, aka Devils (he says, writing on his iPad!):

"Incidentally, living by the word, by organized series of words, which is narrative, is a handicap when it comes to operating modern electronic devices like telephone answering machines or VCRs (not to mention computers and the phantasmagoric reaches of E-mail). Such ineptness is not due, as laughing children suppose, to quaintness or premature senility. It is simply that readers are accustomed to receiving information in the narrative mode. A row of minimally labeled buttons means nothing if the nerve paths aren't trained for it. True, the machines come with instructions, but those hover near the borderline of language....When my younger daughter translates the manuals into narrative form, I, too, can make the machines work....I feel the familiar comfort of language performing its original task. If those of us who live by language become superfluous in years to come, it will not be because of the advance of technology, but the loss of coherent discourse."

[Marilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Reading was the stable backdrop against which my life was played. In daylight I would pay what I owed the world. Reading was the reward, a solitary, obscure, nocturnal world. It was what I got everything else (living) out of the way in order to do."

"Twice a week we repaired to an unusually pleasant room for a public school at that time--big windows, lots of light, thriving plants, walls lined with books, blond wood tables comfortably seating six. Maybe memory embroiders--it sounds too lovely. On the first day, the librarian, a gentle gray-haired woman with no special subject to impart and thus no anxious fervor, told us to choose a book from the shelves, any book, and sit and read it. This was familiar; I did it all the time at home. But I had never done it in a room with thirty other people. In fact, reading was about the last activity I would have associated with school. I got absorbed, as I did curled on my bed, and almost forgot the surroundings. But not entirely. Any private pleasure appropriated by an institution is in danger of losing its savor, and alas, reading took on an official tinge."

[Aman Mittal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let’s talk about reading books on books. Reading books on books is a constant reminder on why I love to read. Ruined by Reading offers a somewhat a deep insight on why we read and how what we read might shape our lives. It provides an interesting, curiosity arousing introduction to reading variety of books. Also, the title is captivating as well as ironical.

As we grow up and pretend to become more mature, our reading changes with us. The desire to read almost every book still remains but has taken a different form and shape inside me. We understand more, with age, the usefulness of reading a book.

Reading Schwartz book reminded me of times when I was indulging myself into this vast world. Schwartz understand and clearly observes that how obsessive are the readers. She then discusses how books have small part, which can be a tiny bit, or major rotation in the development of the reader who reads them. In her book, Lynne Schwartz clearly observes that every individual develops his or her own internal relationship with books.

I have read a few books on reading in the last year and this one certainly joins the list.

3 out of 5!

[Jimmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book begins with a quote from The New York Times: a Chinese scholar named Cha says, "Belief in Buddhism has curbed my appetite for books. To read more is a handicap. It is better to keep your mind free and to not let the thinking of others interfere with your own free thinking."

Oh, my God, that is such a load of nonsense. Here is one thing all humanity needs to learn before it is too late: "Thinking requires knowledge. You cannot think clearly without knowledge. One of the best ways to acquire knowledge is to read."

Perhaps the biggest problem the world faces now is human ignorance. How else do you explain Donald Trump? Or our failure to deal with climate change? Or coal power plants? Or dying oceans? And so on.

The book did remind me of my own reading history. I wrote one story about it here:

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

[Chet Herbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

. . . "reading at random--letting desire lead--feels like the most faithful kind. In a bookstore, I leaf through the book next to the one I came to buy, and a sentence sets me quivering. I buy that one instead, or as well. A book comes in the mail and I begin it out of mild curiosity, to finish spellbound. A remark overheard on a bus reminds me of a book I meant to read last month. I hunt it up in the library and glance at the old paperbacks on sale for twenty-five cents. There is the book so talked about in college--it was to have prepared me for life and here I have blundered through decades without it. Snatch it up quickly before it's too late. And what we read is as wayward and serendipitous as any taste or desire. Or perhaps randomness is not so random after all. Perhaps at every stage what we read is what we are, or what we are becoming, or desire."

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If we make books happen, they make us happen as well. Reading teaches receptivity, Keats's negative capability. It teaches us to receive, in stillness and attentiveness, a voice possessed temporarily, on loan. The speaker lends herself and we do the same, a mutual and ephemeral exchange, like love. Yet unlike love, reading is a pure activity. It will gain us nothing but enchantment of the heart. And as we grow accustomed to receiving books in stillness and attentiveness, so we can grow to receive the world, also possessed temporarily, also enchanting the heart" (118).

Schwartz tells us and shows us, in all ways imaginable, that reading is a sensual rather than intellectual pleasure.

[Britta Böhler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging and thought provoking book, centering around the question why we read what we read. Bookish examples are sometimes a bit difficult to relate to for non-English readers (who obviously have a different reading history, esp. during childhood and in school) but Schwartz's intelligent contemplations on reading are nevertheless very worthwhile.

[Blackbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful small book about reading and the influence of books. A perfect read for bookaholics.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have thoroughly loved this book.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really really enjoyed this memoir. Having similar taste in literature and a similar passion for books as the author this was a fun read. Thus why it gets four stars from me for personal taste and enjoyment only.

However...

This reads very much like a stream of consciences argument in that one memory leads to a book which leads to an argument, etc.

Also, this is not a text that has aged well in that some of the issues presented have changed and morphed into something new.

Still, if you have a good background in the classics and enjoy your addiction to reading; then this is the book for you.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A shot book about the author's love of reading and how it has impacted her over the years. It's a short, quick read that bookaholics will likely enjoy (what avid reader doesn't love knowing what others have loved reading?) and an unapologetic defense of the joys of reading as it seems to become less and less a part of most people's lives.

[Anne Bennett]

I couldn't muster the energy to finish this one. So I decided to follow the Nancy Pearl rule, to read 50 pages if you are over 50 years old. I read 58 and said, "Enough,"

[Ruby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely memoir on a lifetime of an avid reader.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This small book helped me finish the Morrisson Reeves Library Summer reading program. It's length is about the length of a piece in the "New Yorker," and the flow and content felt similar. Schwartz considers how reading has shaped, transformed, and "ruined" her life since the age of 3 when her father would tout her early reading abilities as a quaint parlor trick. I enjoyed reading this combination memoir/philosophy in one day.

[astried]

the usual three stars

The difference of this book to other books-on-books/reading/writing is that it started by questioning the wisdom of a life with reading addiction attached on it. Honestly I've never questioned it. Reading is just a part of my life as breathing or eating. My oldest remembrance already has some sort of reading, children magazine, pocket money saved to buy some extra books, school library after school library. There was time when it relapsed, I can't remember what I did with all the not-reading time; though when I said relapsed it just meant it dropped down from always having a book to read to finishing a book in a month time. Once it flares up again, there's no limiting it. And all those time the question never popped up. Have I ruined my life by reading? Would I've been a kinder, friendlier, outgoing person without the bookworld constantly fighting for attention? But who would she be? The me without all the reading? Unimaginable. Would I even try to question it now? Or would it be for me the classic comment that people say to a smoker, he/she could've bought a car with all the money he spent on cigarrette; knowing full well the non-smoker is standing there without the car that he could've bought with the money he didn't buy cigarrette with. Would I've been a different person without my reading? Most definitely. Would I've used my time for more exalted purpose? Highly doubtful.

Well Schwartz, she hasn't been really questioning either. she used the question as an opening to tell her fully read life but I don't think she has ever doubted that it ever ruined her life, despite her elaborating the lack of benefit she received from devoting all the reading time. She's in to it deep, deeper than me since it's her way of living. I suppose this is the way it should be; after all, only avid reader (fellow addict) would read this type of book, it's basically preaching to the convert. Therefore it's just the usual three stars.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I this at the Friends of the Library booksale, one of my favorite quotes (from Louisa May Alcott) came to mind, "She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain."

There were many times the narrative struck close to home -- I too am a book addict, and would be a member of readers anonymous, were there such a group. Some bookish habits and delights the author and I share, while we branch out a bit on others. My parents were also People of the Book, (though I did tire of that refrain a bit), and my children learned early on that though I might say no to an impluse buy of Power Rangers or My Little Pony, I would probably never refuse them a book.

Despite our shared love of books, what I liked best about this volume were the glimpses into the world of Brooklyn that my mother and grandmother inhabited. We have our own family stories about iceboxes and the stoops of brownstones. She also brought to mind my earliest memories, mostly centered around reading and books. Maybe someday, I'll write it all up so that others can stumble upon the stories at a booksale, and awaken a loving, lingering walk through memories of People of the Book.







I didn't know much about the author prior to finding the volume, and when I looked her up, found she was part of that generation a half step before me, and that our roots had some commonalities. Prior to this book, I had only stumbled upon a commentary and a children's book she had written. Her final book was published posthumously (http://www.lynnesharonschwartz.com/).