Customer Reviews

Reading in Bed: Personal Essays on the Glories of Reading

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This collection of 22 essays contains works by famous authors on the subject of reading. Ordered by the essayists' date of birth, you will find the thoughts of Montaigne, Hazlitt, RW Emerson, HD Thoreau, Ruskin, Higginson, RL Stevenson, Proust, Hesse, H Miller, E Bowen, Nabokov, C Fadiman, Greene, R Davies, Calvino, J Fowles, H Brodkey, S Elkin, J Epstein, LS Schwartz and S Birkerts.

I've read a number of such anthologies and, unfortunately, thought this was one of the weaker entries. While it is inherently interesting to read the thoughts of such interesting writers, what they actually have to say is not always very enlightening or entertaining -- and it really should be one or the other, if not both. A few of the essays were wonderful. I really enjoyed those by Nabokov on good readers and writers, Calvino on reading the classics, Brodkey on the dangers of reading and Epstein on reading versus experience. I thought Schwartz and Birkerts were the best writers, and Graham Greene's "The Lost Childhood" offset with a response from Robertson Davies was quite interesting.

The book concludes with notes about the authors, a bibliography and acknowledgments. I would have appreciated more editorial comment as well as information about the original date of the material rather than the date of translation, and better proofreading. There were a distracting number of typos.

All in all, there are a number of enjoyable essays here, but the quality is uneven and a lack of editing detracted from my enjoyment of this collection. There are better books of essays about reading, though if you are especially interested in the topic, this volume would be a worthwhile addition to your collection.

Being a confirmed bibliophile and borderline biblioholic and bibliomaniac, I have to say I really relished the pieces included in this collection - it feels like a session of "The Biblioholics Anonymous"! The fly in the ointment and an irksome annoyance is the haphazard copy editing! This really detracts from an otherwise wonderful book. Was "spell check" not available to the editors, then? I found several pages where there were more than a couple of spelling errors! But a great 'pillow book' just the same!

The title says it all. Essays about reading are included from the likes of Emerson, Thoreau, Clifton Fadiman, Nabokov, Proust, Graham Greene, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc.

I did not love this book, but I liked it. Some of the comments put a smile on my face. A few writers discussed the downsides, even dangers, of reading. One writer stressed reading less, not more. One writer criticized the essay previous to his. It was an interesting approach, but is not as enjoyable as other essays on reading I've read, such as the beloved Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman.

Recommended for dedicated bibliophiles like myself only. :)

I thought this would be better than it was.....let's put it this way....I kept it by my bed and it was the perfect book for helping me get to sleep at night!