Customer Reviews

How Reading Changed My Life

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It is impossible not to feel the kinship that this book provides. The title, for one thing, is spot on. Books do change your life, and the love of reading is one of the greatest gifts i have received. Like Quindlen, i remember discovering books as a little girl, and what a wonderful window into the world they were (and continue to be). She verbalizes what i'm sure many of us had felt for ages. Thank you for doing that!!!

This book is a wonderful way for readers to understand themselves, if they don't already. Quindlen shows that we're NOT weird because we read, we're NOT escapists who can't handle the real world, and we're NOT anti-social. We're just in love with words and the power of stories. In only 84 pages, Quindlen tackles the reasons why we read, reading and technology, why classics should not be crammed down our kids' throats, and much more. Her Top Ten lists alone are worth the price of the book. As great as this book is for readers, it makes an even better gift for friends and family members who DON'T understand our need to read. A must read, a must-have.

Anna Quindlen's "How Reading Changed My Life" is a charming and inspiring blend of autobiography and informal cultural criticism. In the book Quindlen reflects on books, reading, and readers.

Quindlen notes, "While we pay lip service to the virtues of reading, the truth is that there is in our culture something that suspects those who read too much, whatever reading too much means, of being lazy, aimless dreamers [...]." These, and many other insights in this book, really resonated with me. Throughout the book, Quindlen celebrates what she calls a "lively subculture" of truly serious readers.

Quindlen reflects on differences in men's and women's reading practices, on book groups, on skirmishes over "The Canon" of great books, on banned books, and on other topics. She tells how reading helped her keep her sanity during the "year of disarray" after the birth of her second child, and recalls how she fell in love with John Galsworthy's "Forsyte Saga." Ultimately, she explains why she believes that new technologies will not make old-fashioned books (versus online books) obsolete.

HRCML is full of wonderful passages, such as a remembered epiphany over D.H. Lawrence. This short book concludes with a few reading lists: "10 Nonfiction Books That Help Us Understand the World," "The 10 Books I Would Save in a Fire (If I Could Save Only 10)," etc. If you are a serious reader, I predict that, like me, you will recognize a kindred spirit in these pages, and will rejoice.

It was beautiful to read a piece of work about - reading itself. Numerous times I recognised the same passion for books that I feel as well, but could never put on a paper as skilfully as Ms. Quindlen did.
This extended essay was a wonderful reading experience, not only as a separate work, but also as an insight in Ms. Quindlen's favourites that she sometimes likes to mention in her novels.

THIS WONDERFUL BOOK TOUCHED MY HEART THE DAY I PURCHASED IT JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS DAY AROUND THREE YEARS AGO. I SPENT A FEW DAYS JUST ENGROSSED IN IT. ALL THE BOOKS THAT KEPT ME INSIDE LIKE ANNA HERSELF: I REMEMBER MY MOTHER EVEN NOW SAYING "DON'T READ - TALK TO ME WHILE YOU ARE HERE" - ANNA TOUCHED ON THE LOVE OF BOOKS LIKE NO OTHER PERSON HAS. THAT WONDERFUL COMMON THREAD WE ALL SHARE - THE LOVE OF READING AND THE LOVE OF WORDS AND THE LOVE OF BOOKS. AT THE BACK OF THE BOOK HER LISTS WERE COMPARABLE TO WHAT I READ, BUT I HAD FUN CHANGING AND COMPILING MY OWN, AND IT DID BETTER THAN THAT, IT CHALLENGED ME TO READ SOME OF THE BOOKS I HAD NOT READ BEFORE. THIS BOOK IS MY "COMFORT READ" WHEN NOTHING ELSE WILL DO - THIS IS THE BOOK I REACH FROM MY SIDE TABLE AND IS MY FRIEND, IT IS A BOOK TO SAVOR. I WISH MORE PEOPLE NEW ABOUT THIS BOOK AND NEW OF ITS CONTENTS, EVEN THOUGH ONLY THIN, IT IS MIGHTY POWERFUL AND MAKES ME FEEL PASSIONATE, LIKE ANNA, READING HAS CHANGED MY LIFE, A LIFE I ENJOY, AND AMONG FRIENDS - ALWAYS.

Author, Anna Quindlen shares with her audience her deep love for reading and its impact upon her life. She takes us on a nostalgic walk through her memories as a reader. You will see yourself as a reader through her eyes. Remember when parents and friends thought you strange when you preferred reading over going outside to play? All of us have been there with Quindlen as we were taken to different worlds and experienced different thoughts through the written word.

Quindlen further expands her commentary about reading that deals with a number of issues. She looks at the impact of the computer on the future of books, comments on Americans belief that reading is good only if it is functional, shares with us the never ending issue of book banning and the academic controversy surrounding the literary canon.

Reading holds a very important place in Quindlen's life but the greatest weakness of this work is that she doesn't tell us how reading itself changed her life. Certainly books opened a new world for her but how did this unveiling move her as a writer and a person? You never find out. She provides for us lists of her favorate ten books for various occasions. Reading lists are very personal but I find it strange that her canon is predominently white and male especially when she speaks out against literary lists that are monocultural. Apparently she doesn't practice what she preaches.

Overall her insights give you an appreciation of the written word and the delight books can give to its readers. People should not only take reading seriously but also enjoy the best and worst of what books have to offer. Quindlen does an excellent job in inspiring you to keep an open mind and to keep on reading.

Anna Quindlen has always written in a friendly, accessible style, and in this essay she explores a topic dear to [our] hearts: reading. Furthermore, she articulates what many of us feel -- that reading is not just for literary critics and deconstructionists; that there is as much validity in reading for pleasure as in reading for improvement; that there is a delicious paradox in such a solitary activity leading to a sense of community.

Through her personal anecdotes, Quindlen relates shared experiences: of having a professor sneer at a book she loved (I had the same thing happen with Michener -- a wonderful author who has never been taken seriously by the literati); of the first book that made her look at the world in a new way (for me it was The Hobbit); of being the only kid in the neighborhood who'd rather be reading than playing kick-the-can (oh, yes!); of the joy of sharing good books with others.

The author includes 11 top-ten lists (e.g. Books That Will Help a Teenager Feel More Human, Books I Would Save in a Fire).

Quindlen's work in general, and 'How Reading Changed My Life' in particular, is the stuff at the soul of [...] a joyful community of readers. As she says, "Reading has always been my home, my sustenance, my great invincible companion". There are so many gems; [...], you will probably enjoy this little book.

For this reader, who is currently wading through Henry Miller's dense, challenging THE BOOKS IN MY LIFE, the short HOW READING CHANGED MY LIFE is more the comfortable touchstone for a middle-class, baby boomer whom Miller would have quickly dismissed if he had met her. Quindlen validates our common habits.

Unlike many, including the nasty new breed known as aliterates, who struggle with the fear that reading might be a replacement for life and experience, she argues that reading IS experience. It amplifies life's other experiences, it helps make meaning of them. Thank you, Anna Quindlen, for settling that one once and for all. I agree wholeheartedly with her appreciation of middlebrow beginnings. As she points out, we get to the worthy stuff when we're ready and a young person struggling with MIDDLEMARCH will not easily turn into an adult who enjoys serious reading. Think of it this way: there are quite a few professional musicians out there who as eight-year-olds never played a sophisticated scherzo at their first piano recital, they played "The Old Mill Song".

Yes, Quindlen includes lists but they are not haughty absolutes. This is a slim book, an extended essay really, and it could be argued that she has only begun to scrape the surface. Look at it this way, though: she lets us out of class early so we can go out and enjoy reading on our own.

This brief book, basically an extended essay, focuses on how reading shapes a person from childhood on. Quindlen's familiar, articulate style makes the book a joy to read.

I definitely could identify with much of what Quindlen says. I still remember the books that touched me deeply during childhood, and how wonderful it is to re-read an old favorite and recover that fascination.

Quindlen recounts a letter from a young fan that begins, "I guess you could say I am a bookworm!" This book is a reminder that there are many bookworms in existence, for whom reading is as important as any other life activity. Bravo to Quindlen for celebrating readers and reading!

This book should be in every American public library. It should appeal to every librarian, teacher, student, parent and book lover. This small non-fiction book identifies what propels people to brake for the book store, library and even scan the bookshelves of our friends and families. This is not just a book for the bibliophiles of this country.