Reading in Bed: Personal Essays on the Glories of Reading
by By Gilbar, Steven (EDT)
Category: Literary Criticism , Books & Reading

A delightful collection of essays penned by writer/readers extolling the joys and dangers of reading.  The 22 famous authors commence with Michel de Montaigne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and glide into the 20th century with Marcel Proust, Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, John Fowles, and Sven Birkerts.  Some of the offerings are pedantical and instructive while others share a surprising point of view e.g. Miller says his promiscuous reading ruined him.  Our favorites are Stanley Elkins's ruminations on spending a year reading in bed before his PhD preliminaries, and Birkerts's reminisces of having to get "vertical" to please his father. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.