Books on Reading

On a shelf nestled under my favorite books, sits a growing group of favored companions--books on reading. Some people may think, "This guy is sick. He even loves to read books about reading." Guilty. I gravitate towards books of this kind for two reasons: 1). They are a great source for finding out about great books I haven't yet read, and 2). They allow me a certain feeling of kinship to the author. My favorites in this category include How to Read Slowly: Reading for Comprehension by James W. Sire (1978), A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel (1996), How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen (1998), andEx Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman (1998). Here's a quote from Ex Libris:

. . .there is a certain kind of child who awakens from a book as from an abyssal sleep, swimming heavily up through layers of consciousness toward a reality that seems less real than the dream-state that has been left behind. I was such a child. Later as a teenager under the influence of Hardy, I could not fall in love without classifying the boy as a Damon or a Clym. Later still, I lay with my husband (a Clym) in a bed that was lumpy with books, hoping the delivery of our first child would resemble Kitty's birth scene in Anna Karenina but fearing it might be more like Mrs. Thingummy's in Oliver Twist.

Reading about reading puts me in touch with others like me (who would be close friends if we actually knew each other).