Bookworms: Great Writers and Readers Celebrate Reading

Book Overview

Presents a variety of excerpts from nineteenth and twentieth-century British and American authors that describe the joys of reading.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786703954
• ISBN13: 9780786703951
• Release Date: November 1996
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub
• Length: 323 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Essays for book addicts

Here?s a special selection for those of you who live toread. In ?Bookworms,? edited by Laura Furman and ElinoreStandard, you will find a variety of essays and quotes on yourfavorite subject.The first section was for me the most interesting. Entitled ?TheYoung Reader,? it contained explanations by a variety of folks onhow they first learned to read. If you enjoy keeping a list ofthe books you have read or if you have ever tried to master oneof the ?100 books you absolutely have to read? lists, you willenjoy Richard Rodriguez?s experiences. The more he read, the morehe discovered he needed to read next. ?At the library,? heremembers, ?I would literally trembled as I came upon wholeshelves of books I hadn?t read. So I read and I read and I read.. . .?Or perhaps you remember those first exciting moments when youdiscovered a certain author, especially one who had a wholeseries of books. In this case, you will identify with Hal Borlandwho first came across real books while visiting a neighbor on theprairies of Colorado. When she loaned him a copy of Cooper?s ?TheLast of the Mohicans,? he had walked halfway home before he cameup for air. ?I had just discovered a world of horizons beyondhorizons,? he remembers, ?a world I couldn?t see even from thetop of the hay stack on a clear day. I had found something thatwould shape my whole life. As I trudged on, I began to sense mydiscovery, a discovery even bigger than the plains.?The next section, entitled ?Sorts of Readers.? You will probablyconcur with Joseph Epstein when he says, ?having too much to readisn?t a problem; having to little to read has been on occasion.In paucity, never prolificacy, lies fear.?Do you find that men and women like different kinds of books?Tamar Lewin speaks of ?boy books? and ?girl books,? Men likeanything where the point is the ideas, the landscape, or theaction; girl books are ?about relationships, families, and thedetails of daily life.? Thus the war between the sexes is reallythe battle between ?Moby Dick? and ?Little Women.?Other sections in this fascinating collection are ?ReadingAloud,? ?Reading Ahead? (which contains a timely essay on theimpact of computers on the world of books), ?Queen Lear?(dealing with the way we use books to understand ourselves) and?The Privileges Pleasure? Finally there is a bibliography forthose of you who want even more.If you are a book addict, you will enjoy these essays.

Little Sleeper

The perfect gift for the real reader! An anthology which includes words from your fellow readers through the centuries. This is a book you can dip into. Keep it by the bed. Read a little here, a little there. Enjoy what other reading addicts have to tell you about the place of reading in their own lives. See how reading continues to change a life, continues to provide openings, escape, a way up and a way out.