WHY WE READ

Confessions of a happy reader.

As a hearing-impaired child, Reed found safety in books. She chose her borrowed books carefully after receiving her first library card at around age 5. As a teenager, she signed up for Pizza Hut’s BOOK IT! program, even though she needed no encouragement to read. Now an educator and writer, Reed offers a lighthearted memoir in the form of short essays about her experiences reading, teaching, and thinking about books. Growing up, reading made her feel smart. “And in reading,” she adds, “I was never lonely, the way I sometimes felt in real life.” She read in the bathroom, in the car, in the dentist’s chair, and on family vacations when she might have been looking out for flora and fauna. She writes about the pleasures of reading all the books in a series, her affinity for cookbooks, books that provide comfort, and books with surprising plot twists. As a student, she hated assigned reading, making her sympathetic to her own students who were faced with required summer books. Although her tastes are eclectic, she doesn’t like reading plays. “Plays,” she insists, “should be read aloud.” Popping up amid the essays are brief, funny send-ups of genre stereotypes, such as “Signs you may be a female character in a work of historical fiction.” One sign: Your name is Sarah. “Signs you may be an adult character in YA fiction”? For one, your children’s friends “think you are the best.” A list of books mentioned appends the memoir, with some elaborated on at length: George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo, for one, which Reed taught to her college students; and Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal. Reflecting on a life devoted to books, Reed writes, “My grave marker may someday read: She read every page.”

Delightful reminiscences of a book lover.