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Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries, and Just One More Page before Lights Out Audiobook
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A hilarious and incisive exploration of the joys of reading from a teacher, bibliophile, and Thurber Prize finalist
We read to escape, to learn, to find love, to feel seen. We read to encounter new worlds, to discover new recipes, to find connection across difference, or simply to pass a rainy afternoon. No matter the reason, books have the power to keep us safe, to challenge us, and perhaps most importantly, to make us more fully human.
Shannon Reed, a longtime teacher, lifelong reader, and New Yorker contributor, gets it. With one simple goal in mind, she makes the case that we should read for pleasure above all else.
In this whip-smart, laugh-out-loud-funny collection, Reed shares surprising stories from her life as a reader and the poignant ways in which books have impacted her students. From the varied novels she cherishes—Gone Girl, Their Eyes Were Watching God—to the ones she didn’t —Tess of the d’Urbervilles—Reed takes us on a rollicking tour through the comforting world of literature, celebrating the books we love, the readers who love them, and the surprising ways in which literature can transform us for the better
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“Reed gives us grace to love the books we love and reminds us, by sharing her own tender memories, why certain stories stick in our hearts for a lifetime.”
— Elizabeth Passarella, author of Good Apple
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“What a charming book Shannon Reed has written, a love letter (or series of love letters) to reading as avocation and as art.”
— David L. Ulin, author of The Lost Art of Reading -
“Entertaining, life-affirming, and laugh-out-loud funny. Why We Read is the perfect gift.”
— Annabelle Gurwitch, New York Times bestselling author of You’re Leaving When? Adventures in Downward Mobility
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About Shannon Reed
Shannon Reed is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh and a contributor to the New Yorker’s “Shouts & Murmurs” pieces. Her work has also appeared in Real Simple, the Paris Review, Slate, Literary Hub, Longreads, the London Guardian, Washington Post, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and McSweeney’s. She holds an MA degree in educational theater and teaching second English and an MFA degree in creative writing.