My Reading Life / Review

Author: Pat Conroy
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
(November 2, 2010) 
ISBN-10: 9780385533577

Book Description:
Bestselling author Pat Conroy acknowledges the books that have shaped him and celebrates the profound effect reading has had on his life. Pat Conroy, the beloved American storyteller, is also a vora­cious reader. He has for years kept a notebook in which he notes words or phrases, just from a love of language. But read­ing for him is not simply a pleasure to be enjoyed in off-hours or a source of inspiration for his own writing. It would hardly be an exaggeration to claim that reading has saved his life, and if not his life then surely his sanity.

In My Reading Life, Conroy revisits a life of passionate reading. He includes wonderful anecdotes from his school days, mov­ing accounts of how reading pulled him through dark times, and even lists of books that particularly influenced him at vari­ous stages of his life, including grammar school, high school, and college. Readers will be enchanted with his ruminations on reading and books, and want to own and share this perfect gift book....

And, come graduation time, My Reading Life will establish itself as a perennial favorite, as did Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

My Review: Before reading My Reading Life, I had never read Pat Conroy. After reading this book I am now a great fan of his. What beautiful prose! Mr. Conroy confides his life story with the touch of a master writer. I was spell-bound throughtout the entire book and afterward gave it to my daughter to read. His chapter on The Military Brat was absolutely insightful. I have never read anything like it before, and being from a military family, I could relate to every word. I'm afraid I completely ruined the value of my personal copy with an abundance of highlighted passages, but it is just that good. It is a book I will read multiple times. Thank you Pat Conroy for giving this reader a couple of days of complete reading enjoyment! 5 stars***** all the way!