On Reading, Writing and Living with Books is a quite small book but packed with some amazing wisdom. It is only 92 pages long and is 4 by 6 inches in size. Within the book, there are essays by Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, Leigh Hunt, and E.M. Forster. There are also some letters that Charles Dickens had written to some writers. A couple of the essays really stood out to me. I have included links to them as I could find them.
Virginia Woolf shared an essay published in 1925 called How Should One Read a Book? She begins with the best advice possible for reading a book. Follow your own instincts. We should not allow others to tell us how to read a book or what we should think after reading it.
The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions.
When you read someone’s book, do not be judgmental. Instead, try to become the author and understand their point of view. I have to agree with Woolf that if you are critical too soon, you may miss key points. Take the time to enjoy the world that the writer has created or the advice they are imparting. The world created is part of the author. Woolf shared an exercise that taps into this direction of thinking.
Is there not an open window on the right hand of the bookcase? How delightful to stop reading and look out! How stimulating the scene is, in its unconsciousness, its irrelevance, its perpetual movement — the colts galloping round the field, the woman filling her pail at the well, the donkey throwing back his head and emitting his long, acrid moan. The greater part of any library is nothing but the record of such fleeting moments in the lives of men, women, and donkeys.
Woolf does not say that we should not judge books. We should critique them but at the proper time. We should also judge books in comparison to other books. We have a responsibility to read and make judgment upon a book.
If behind the erratic gunfire of the press the author felt that there was another kind of criticism, the opinion of people reading for the love of reading, slowly and unprofessionally, and judging with great sympathy and yet with great severity, might this not improve the quality of his work? And if by our means books were to become stronger, richer, and more varied, that would be an end worth reaching.
I loved reading what Virginia Woolf had to share. As far as I can remember, this was the first time that I read her writing. It was truly a gift.
Another essay that really resonated with me was Leigh Hunt’s 1823 essay, My Books. In this essay, Hunt discussed his relationship with his books and his library. Hunt seems to prefer a personal library where he could easily touch all the books around him. He compared his library against others that he had seen. His library was a working library and not one simply for show. It appears that he had read the books in his library often more than once.
Hunt was also a book borrower and lender. He did not have high regard for someone who was stingy with their books.
Some people are unwilling to lend their books. I have a special grudge against them, particularly those who accompany their unwillingness with uneasy professions to the contrary, and smiles like Sir Fretful Plagiary.
He talked about relations he had developed with various authors and their works even if only through their works. He ended the essay with
At all events, nothing while I live and think can deprive me of my value for such treasures. I can help the appreciation of them while I last, and love them till I die; and perhaps, if fortune turns her face once more in kindness upon me before I go, I may chance, some quiet day, to lay my overheating temples on a book, and so have the death I most envy.
This was a wonderful book to read. I will certainly return to it again. Thanks, Susan! On Reading, Writing and Living with Books is certainly a book that I will gift other book lovers.
Photo by Oscar Chevillard on Unsplash
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