BOOKS PROMISCUOUSLY READ

A book that encourages the reading of other books, preferably with abandon.

In this meditation, White, an English professor who has edited several collections of Marianne Moore’s poetry, urges those inclined toward a literary life to fully embrace that inclination. Devoted readers know how books can expand consciousness, but how many start their days with them? Rather than an activity to engage in after we crawl into bed (if we have the energy), the author suggests an unabashed approach. The problem is that many of us were taught to make reading another task to tackle. “Reading without purpose is playful,” writes White, “and play is not easy for adults.” While it’s correct to infer from the title that the author believes in guilt-free reading trysts, she seems less inclined toward romps with books lowbrow as well as high. Her arguments draw mostly on literary titans, as she quotes frequently from the likes of Emily Dickinson, Don DeLillo, and Don Quixote. Only some of the quotes are attributed in the body of the text. While White makes a note of this structural element, discerning readers may tire of flipping to the back pages. Meanwhile, the language at times strains to be lofty: “Alert, relaxed, keen, and unguarded, the reading self easily occupies an otherwise elusive and fleeting state of awareness in which no answer need be final, no one moment need be decisive. In that fluid medium insight is free to gather and effloresce.” Throughout, White seems less interested in making new readers than emboldening the already well-read. Herein lies its strength, including when the author takes up counterarguments. For example, reading has downsides—when we outsourced our memory onto the pages of books, we began to remember stories less vividly—and it’s not for everyone. Yes, everyone deserves the right to literacy, but not all souls hunger for Middlemarch. So don’t look down your noses at nonreaders.

A mixed bag that will end up in the book sacks of the literature-inclined—not unintentionally.