Sometimes, I just don’t understand blurbs, although I’ll admit the one from George Saunders did make me more interested in Shannon Reed’s Why We Read. He said, “A hilarious and incisive exploration of the joys of reading.” While I found the book interesting, the funniest part of the book was the subtitle, “On Bookworms, Libraries, and Just One More Page Before Lights Out”. Hilarious? I don’t think so.
There were many points in Reed’s book that I identify with. She defines herself as a reader, saying “Reading gives me the world.” At fourteen, she was invited to join the “elite teenage page program” at the Central Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. I started as a page at sixteen. And, she says she’s had a love of libraries over the years.
Oh, I know this feeling of being a reader as a kid. It’s not often that I experience it now. “It was a time of unfettered, unhinged reading, of passing every moment in two lives, one my actual lived existence, and the other wherever my book took me. I miss it.” I do, too. She talks about that in her chapter “To Finish a Series”. Were you obsessed with series as a kid? I can’t tell you how many Oz books I read, how many Happy Hollister mysteries. I didn’t read the Little House and Anne of Green Gables books as the author says she did. I don’t think those books had enough adventure for me. I preferred mysteries even as a child, or Andrew Lang’s numerous Fairy Books, which were often dark and grim. Don’t think of The Yellow Fairy Book as something sweet.
In that same chapter, Reed mentions her students. “Luxuriating in a series is still a pleasure. My college students have told me that they read those fantasy series they love at a breakneck speed, plot-drunk, desperate to find out what happens aware that once finished, they can return to the beginning and start again.” Although I was an adult when the Harry Potter books came out, that’s how I read every one. And, I have nephews in their thirties who reread some of those enormous fantasy series.
No, I didn’t find Why We Read to be hilarious. But, there were passages that spoke to me, and sometimes, that’s all I can ask. Here’s one for all of us readers. “Read whatever you want, whenever you like, however you prefer, wherever you choose.” Yes.
Shannon Reed’s website is https://www.shannonreed.org/
Why We Read by Shannon Reed. Hanover Square Press, 2024. ISBN 9781335007964 (hardcover), 336p.
FTC Full Disclosure – The publicist sent an ARC, with no promise of a positive review.
I agree. I’ve always been a completist, even as a kid, though I can’t say I feel “forced” to finish a series these days as much as I did when I was younger. Like you, I read all the Oz books as a kid. When we moved to Brooklyn when I was 9, I discovered that our landlady’s kids had all the Oz books in hardback stored in the basement of our two family house. (We rented the first floor, they had the upstairs.) I was able to borrow them and read them – in order, of course – first to last.
When I started reading mysteries in bulk around 1970, I tried where possible to read a series in order, but there were times I could only get later books, so read them first, then filled in the series as I found the others. Sometimes this didn’t work out. For instance, without realizing it was the last in the series and not the first, I read Nicolas Freeling’s A Long Silence before the rest of the series, which was unfortunate. In general, it doesn’t matter which Hercule Poirot book you read first, but there are a couple of references to earlier books you might not want to read until you read the previous one. I read the Marple Nemesis, then had to go back to A Caribbean Mystery to see the setup with Jason Rafiel. Similarly, I got tangled up in the mess of Bert Kling’s love life by reading some of Ed McBain’s 87h Precinct books out of order, but in the early ’70s it just wasn’t easy to access every book you wanted to read when you were ready to read it.
You’re right, Jeff. It wasn’t as easy in the ’70s. Interlibrary loan wasn’t as easy at libraries; we didn’t have Kindles and ebooks. And, I never even new there were multiple books in the Narnia series until I was in high school and a classmate had all of them. Our small public library only had The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and I thought that was it!
I do like to read from the beginning, but sometimes it doesn’t work that way.
For me, the biggest reason I read is to escape the real world. Whether it was back when I was a teen being bullied every day damn because I was being bullied for being different, Sandi’s death, and everything in between, reading has always been my escape from the real world. That escape these days is way harder to achieve with my health problems and financial issues.
I am one that must complete a series. While most of that is done in crime and mystery, Scott is one of those who reads entire fantasy series one after another. Awhile back, we came home from the library with the last three books in some series he was reading. Each one was over 1200 pages.
He did them all in four days.
I told him that was very dangerous as doing it that fast could make your head explode, according to the Surgeon General.
I used to read fast, though I don’t think it was ever that fast. My friend Jeff read King’s UNDER THE DOME (1,074 pages) in one night! He started at 9 or 10 pm and read all night.
I’ve done Harry Potter books or others in one day with no problem, but nothing like 1,074 pages!
Reading has always been my entertainment, Kevin, but also my escape. Not from as big a problem as yours, though.
My gosh. I read quickly, but not at all like Scott’s speed. And, what’s amazing is those fantasy readers can remember that whole world.
“Read whatever you want, whenever you like, however you prefer, wherever you choose.” YES!
There are series that I’m pretty invested in and look forward to the next installment, but a couple do come to mind that I walked away from when I started feeling like they had run their course.
I did, too, Kaye. I”ve enjoyed series, but when I’m no longer enjoying them, it is time to walk away, as you said.
She had some comments I really could relate to.