WhyWe Read - interesting collection of reading thoughts. Nice quick easy read.
Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Press Uk

3.5/5

Why We Read is an interesting collection of thoughts on non-fiction offered by various writers. Some of them encapsulated pretty well why I like reading, and the reasons I like reading non-fiction. I also recognise some of these writers, such as Daniel Susskind, and I found it nice that we were given a window into their musings on subjects other than their expertise. Some of them write with elegant and smart turn of phrases that I enjoyed.

Overall, it was a pretty quick and easy read, though I must say there was not much in particular that stood out, in terms of original thought. The idea to have a collection of short essays on non-fiction specifically, as opposed to just reading also seems pretty random.

An interesting collection of essays on why people read, what effect it has on us and what benefits we get from it. I personally read fiction from all authors, not just ones I've heard of before. I do read non-fiction on subjects that interest me. It's escapism in to a different world and it's education. very interesting to learn why other people do it.

As a teacher who endorses reading I was fascinated to read about others points of view on the subject. This wouldn't encourage you to become a reader but it is entertaining and thought provoking.

It is very hard to rate this book..

Felt like it had no beginning and had no end, just the notes that were stuck in the middle... Some mini essays were interesting, some of them seemed repetitive...
Overall it lacked some kind of unity and structure. It felt like I got into someone's drawer and read random notes from there.

I had an answer for myself as to why I read before I read this collection of thoughts, but it was entertaining in a way when I would agree or disagree with the authors as I read through it..

I found Why We Read to be a real mixed bag. It consists of essays by prominent people (several of whom I had actually heard of and, in some cases, read) about why they read non-fiction and sometimes about why everyone else should read non-fiction. They vary from the concise, pithy and thoughtful to the insufferably pompous and pretentious.

The good essays are really good. George Monbiot makes an excellent case for the written word as solid, checkable information in a world where much is denied or obfuscated. Richard Dawkins thankfully avoids religion and writes beautifully about how wonderful reading about science can be. Esme Weijun Wang (whom I don’t know) talks personally and affectingly about how reading may allow one at least a glimpse of the paths one has not taken oneself. Niall Ferguson is great on the importance of the exercise of the imagination when reading, Alison Bashford’s excitement on browsing Malthus’s library is delightfully infectious...and so on. However...

There are 70 essays here and I found many to be rather hard going for one reason or another. There is an awful lot of self-conscious style on show here; many – although thankfully not all – of the writers here seem to have made a massive effort to write eye-catching prose, which is by no means always a pleasure to read. Abhjit Bannerjee (also a new name to me), for example gives us this. “I read to step inside the game and play: to spot the rhythms, the very special way the consonants knock into each other, to hear the echoes, internal and external, make connections and guess the ones the author wanted us to find.” Oh, really? Well, knock yourself out, Abhjit. Gerd Gigerenzer (not heard of him either) takes a very long time indeed to say that reading extensively may bring greater understanding of and empathy with other people and cultures, finishing with “In this sense, extensive reading is an obligation, even a moral duty.” But in another, probably more accurate sense, it’s something to be encouraged rather than a duty to be imposed.

There’s plenty more of this kind of stuff elsewhere – often with a generous sprinkling of oh-so-casual lists of the high-powered books they just happen to have read. Even the opening essay by Anthony Aguirre (nor him) makes the good but fairly simple point that the huge volume of verbiage now churned out everywhere is not necessarily adding to human knowledge and that we need to be carefully about picking out substance from waffle – and ironically almost submerges the point in a load of pretentious waffle of his own. (And, my word, does that point apply to this book!)

An overall rating is rather difficult. The good essays are well worth reading, and there are a good many more of those that I haven’t cited here. There is also a lot of pompous, self-regarding stuff, too. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether finding the former will make wading through the latter worthwhile.

It's interesting to track the beginning of the habit of reading. Why people enjoy it and what do they stand to gain from it. This book dives into these questions and brings forth various views of why we read and how it affect us. A wonderful book filled with insight and fresh perspective. It is a book I'd love to re-read again.

There are many brilliant answers to the question why we read in this short book. It contains seventy diverse takes from renowned writers on the pleasures and joys of reading. All are very personal takes. Some are simple, short and sweet, some long and intricately woven. Some beautifully written in themselves, while others, perhaps less well written, but sharp and insightful nonetheless. We read I've learned for satisfaction, growth, therapy, guidance, inspiration, agency, pleasure, adventure, discovery, rediscovery, improvement, knowledge, education, challenge, meaning, habit, addiction, compulsion, affliction, necessity, solace....this books contains an endless and beautiful array of perspectives on why we humans read. Why wouldn't you read it?

"Why We Read" is a collection of micro-essays on reading non-fiction, or reading in general, in some cases.

On Reddit there is a phenomenon known as the circlejerk subreddit: an offshoot of a main subreddit that exist to make jokes about the excesses of the sub’s culture. On r/scacirclejerk, women laugh about r/skincareaddiction’s tendency to post flawless selfies and then complain about their wrinkles and blemishes, or how 15-year-olds are deathly afraid of aging. My favourite circlejerk subreddit is r/bookscirclejerk, which pokes fun at the members of r/books (known on the sub as ‘arrrbooks’), who seem to have exclusively read 1984 and the Harry Potter series and insist on comparing every real-life situation to one of the two. The best post on r/bookscirclejerk is a link to a real post on BookRiot entitled ‘Keeping Up a Bookish Lifestyle without Actually Reading’, an idea which would beggar belief if reading in this particular internet circle hadn’t been co-opted into a personal brand rather than a hobby.

In the absence of an introduction justifying its purpose or arrangement, I can only assume that these self-professed bookish non-readers are the audience for Why We Read, a collection of 70 micro-essays on – according to the subtitle – why we read nonfiction, though a number of the contributing authors seem to have missed this prompt and write on reading more generally.

The resulting book, edited by Josephine Greywoode, feels like a barrage of reflections that on the whole adopt a self-congratulatory attitude for simply being a Reader, an Enlightened One, especially in this era of fake news and the lesser distractions of social media and trashy TV. Many of the essays repeat the idea that reading is especially crucial to critical thinking, especially given how much we read almost passively and how that often unthinking absorption of material shapes how we exist and interact with the world. This point is an important one; I only wish it weren’t presented over and over again without subtlety or challenge, an implicit whisper of ‘but that’s not you, because you are a reader’. One of the best essays in the collection, by Richard J. Evans, is the exception that proves the rule: while his essay does end with a clichéd refrain on fake news and critical thinking, he eviscerates the idea that simply reading is enough to make a person wise or good.

The main problem with Why We Read is that I couldn’t figure out who or what the book is for. Is it a coffee table book, or a bedside reader for people who only have a few minutes at a time to read? The effect of reading it is one of wandering through a bookstore, remembering all the books you have at home and wanting to go home and pick them up; my primary instinct throughout Why We Read was to put it down and do some ‘real’ reading. For someone who wants to feel that they are among peers, or ‘understood’ as a member of the reading public, the book might scratch that itch, but it’s hard – as a ‘Reader’ myself ¬– not to feel put off by its undercurrent of condescension. The answer to ‘why I read’ oughtn’t be ‘because I’m special’, and while I doubt that any of the books contributors set out to say so, the message certainly comes across.

The standout essays in the collection are those that overcome the larger problems of the book, offering specific arguments for certain types of nonfiction, such as Richard Dawkins’ essay about science writing, Rosemary Hill on reading the correspondence of historical figures, and Clare Jackson on biography. Others do not limit themselves to a literal interpretation of ‘why we read’ but transform the prompt into something more, as in the excellent essays of Milo Beckman, Clare Chambers, Christopher de Hamel, Jennifer Jacquet, Emma Jane Kirby, Timothy Morton, and Priya Satia. The best essay in the collection is its last, by Slavoj Zizek, which is more a dense philosophical treatise on how we interpret – though I will admit my biases as a PhD student who spends a lot of time reading literary theory.

At its best, this collection forces you away from the question ‘why am I reading this?’ to ‘why do I read?’ None of the essays on their own are sufficient, but the best of them suggest alternative modes of reading, writing and thinking, as well as questions of methodology and genre, that readers can reckon with and situate themselves against. The essays I mention above would be well-suited to a high school English class, in which students are assigned them and ask to write their own justification for reading (or not reading, which would be useful, too). On reflection, it seems that Why We Read was probably dreamt up to act as an easy gift for your ‘bookish’ friends. As an alternative, I’d suggest any of the books written by the contributors to Why We Read – as they are all genuinely talented writers, when given the space to fully explore their ideas, and a coherent centre to organise them around.

[Why We Read is out on May 5th, 2022. Thank you very much to NetGalley and Penguin for providing me with this e-ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.]

I struggled with this. I thought the essays would be longer than they were. They all felt very disjointed and a bit too pie in the sky. There wasn't enough of an introduction pulling them together and weaving the theme. It was literally author after author answering the same question "why read". Much as some of the examples were interesting I think I'd have preferred half the number of answers and twice the depth. 70 felt bananas.

This is one of those collections that it is both inessential and engaging. It veers all over the shop, which is part of its charm, in bringing together 70 "non-fiction" writers to give their views on why we read. Penguin's reach is impressive here in that plenty of interesting writers are featured and the tone ranges widely from earnest (Richard Dawkins) and illuminating (David Wengrow) to charming (Marit Kapla) and hilarious (Scott Hershovitz). Common themes are the indivisibility of reading and writing and the importance of reading in understanding the world, and it's also striking how many writers discuss or refer to fiction, which undermines the focus on the book a little. Special mentions to Alison Bashford, David Edgerton and Slavoj Zizek. Good fun.

Fun, thought provoking and affirming, I paused having read without break about a quarter of these delightful short essays by writers about reading (mainly about reading in book form),and read the whole in about two days.
It’s not a book that is going to make someone who doesn’t read, want to read, because that type of person (generalising) is unlikely to pick up this book, and it relies upon the person reading the book already knowing the pleasure of reading. However, this book is a pleasure for those of us who do read.

Spoiler alert: Don’t read Richard J Evans essay if you want to read Berhard Schlink’s The Reader without spoiler.

A couple of quotes from writers I have read about this question:
<i>”We read books to find out who we are.”</i>
— Ursule Le Guin, The Language of the Night, 1979

<i>”There’s a pleasure in knowing the names of things. It’s not about a need to categorise the world, sectioning it into little boxes. And clearly you don’t have to know the names of rocks – or trees or plants or birds – in order to enjoy a landscape. But if you do have this information, something changes about the way you exist in that space. A named landscape thickens. It’s to do with history and context but also, I think, with the quality of attention. To assign something its name, you need to take the time to pick out identifying features. You look for longer. And the more you know, the more things stop being a backdrop – blurred, indistinguishable, hurried over – and become somehow more present in the view, more insistently themselves, the way a familiar face stands out in a crowd.”</i>
— Helen Gordon, Notes from Deep Time, 2021

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for granting me early access to this book. What an excellent collection! I really enjoyed the myriad of thoughts on why we as readers are drawn to non-fiction. For anyone who loves to read about, well....reading! I would definitely recommend this.

This is a really interesting collection of ideas and viewpoints around reading and how we benefit from it as we grow. It was a really interesting insight into different minds and the art of reading. A great book to open up questions about reading and it’s benefits.

This is a collection of reasons why, according to essay authors, you should read essays and more.
I read basically fiction I must admit, and when I read essays, I always buy the same authors, so most of the authors of the opinions collected in this text, I did not know, with some famous exceptions. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading about different reasons and opinions and the one that stuck in my mind the most, although I don't remember who said it, is that you read it because every book leads to another book, which pretty much sums up my philosophy of life.

Questa é una raccolta delle ragioni per cui, secondo degli autori di saggi, bisognerebbe leggere i saggi e non solo.
Io leggo fondamentalmente fiction devo ammettere, e quando leggo dei saggi, sono solita comprare sempre i soliti autori, quindi la maggior parte delgli autori delle opinioni raccolte in questo testo, non li conoscevo, tranne alcune famose eccezioni. Ciononostante, mi é piaciuto leggere di ragioni e pareri diversi e quella che piú mi é rimasta in mente, anche se non mi ricordo chi l'ha detta, é che si legge perché ogni libro porta ad un altro libro, il che riassume praticamente la mia filosofia di vita.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

I have been incredibly lucky to grow up in a household and family who value reading. From fiction to non-fiction I was always encouraged to read, once I could, and question. I have to admit in my younger years non-fiction was a tad secondary unless it was on one of my obsessions; Ancient Egypt or Dinosaurs! Both of which I still read about when I have the time. This love of reading transferred into my degrees where the joy of non-fiction arose again. From critical theory to philosophy to biography (although this one can potentially fall into fiction too) I discovered the joy of non-fiction again. The great feeling of being able to discuss a topic you love in depth, to learn and retain a bit more knowledge. Needless to say when I saw this collection I was intrigued. Did others find the same feeling. Did people do what I do with my family, discuss our own loves and obsessions sharing information and facts to delight and entertain. I can certainly say I was not disappointed.

The premise of the book is simple. Why do we read non-fiction? Is it just to find answers to questions be it for school, university or work? Or is it for pleasure, a challenge or meaning? The collection of 70 writings include a range of people including Hilton Als to Nicci Gerrard. The result is a celebration of seeing the world in new ways and for potentially having our minds and points of view changed.

I found something to take away in each entry of this collection but I particularly liked Scott Hershovitz entry that likens reading of any kind to a superpower as well as Ananyo Bhattacharya who likens reading to ‘a necessity. Like drawing breath.’ I would highly recommend this collection to those who want to consider and open discussion about why we read and maybe not just non-fiction. It gives a fascinating insight into the minds of contemporary writers and thinkers and is a wonderful reminder that the art and joy of reading be it fiction or fact is still very much alive and well.

As always thank you to netgalley and the publishers for giving me access to an E-ARC of this collection.

Such an interesting book. We all read for many different reasons. Personally it is to learn new things, revisit old passions and to travel without leaving home. It was so interesting to listen to others perspectives on the matter.

I've recently started reading more and more non fiction recently, so this book feels very timely.
A lot of commentary felt very relatable, and I found myself regularly nodding and smiling at many comments. A wonderful mix with diverse point of views that keeps the reader fully engaged.

Insightful read.

An interesting and varied set of essays on the thing that unites many; reading. This is definitely literary and rather wordy, so be warned if you're looking for a light set of writings.