Readers for Life

Readers for Life is a collection of essays, mainly specially commissioned for the book, by fiction authors and literary scholars who reflect on their childhood or adolescent memories of reading. The essays explore how the act of reading shapes an individual, from our formative years into adulthood and beyond. Instead of focusing on reading as an act of escapism, or mere literacy, these writings celebrate reading as a lifelong, joyful experience that intertwines past and present. By revealing our diverse reading histories, the collection fosters awareness of the profound impact of reading on a person's development and offers readers insights that will enrich their own literary experiences.

Featuring an introduction by editors Sander L. Gilman and Heta Pyrhӧnen, Readers for Life includes essays by Natalya Bekhta, Peter Brooks, Philip Davis, Linda and Michael Hutcheon, Sander L. Gilman, Daniel Mendelsohn, Laura Otis, Laura Oulanne, Heta Pyrhӧnen, Salman Rushdie, Cristina Sandu, Pajtim Statovci, and Maria Tatar, as well as an interview with Michael Rosen.

Readers for Life will prompt lifelong readers to cast their minds back to their earliest immersion in storyworlds, to beloved books and the people who recommended them. From the spines of the volumes on the shelf, to vivid illustrations, to the reverberation of language, to the mental impressions and ideas shaping their perceptions of experience, the reading recalled by Gilman and Pyrhӧnen's contributors opens realms of possibility, invites adventures of perspective-taking, and encourages returns to both refreshing and challenging books. — Suzanne Keen, author of Empathy and Reading

A superb and dazzling collection of twelve unusual and insightful memoirs concerning the value of reading by notable writers such as Salman Rushdie, Peter Brooks, Cristina Sandu, and others. At a time when illiteracy is mounting throughout the world, this book urgently recalls how reading still opens the minds of young people to deal with the conflicts they face, not with guns but with imagination. What a joy to read how these writers have profited from reading! — Jack Zipes, author of Speaking Out