Why We Read

I lament that I started this on audiobook when I should have known I was too busy to focus, I also lament that I went into it with a slight misperception about the focus of the book. Once I switched to a tandem read with the ebook and gave it my full attention I had a much better experience. Based on the title and subtitle, I thought the author would be surveying a range of people on their reasons to read and was confused when it started with the author's own early experiences with reading [among other reasons, growing up hard of hearing, books were less frustrating than other experiences] ...and continued to be about her experiences. True, based on her career, she's had the opportunity to interact with many readers, whole classrooms full of them, but it's a lot more fun to engage with this essay collection when you recognize it as part memoir, part English teacher/writer's observations in the reasons she has discovered and observed that herself and other people may read. Overall, it's a well-written, often humourous, subjective look at the many benefits of reading, and the many reasons people may pick up a book that one might categorize as outside the standard 'for the pure love of reading'. There are interstitials such as 'signs you may be a female character in a work of historical fiction' that gently poke fun, but mostly this is the work of a broad-minded individual who can see value in all kinds of books and all kinds of reading, all the more so for having the experience of feedback from students, and fellow scholars. ♥️

⚠️mention of ableism, racism