The Reading of Books

An unmitigated delight for any bibliophile, Holbrook Jackson’s musings on the joys of reading combine his irrepressible wit with the wisdom of famous readers from all corners of the world.

These three volumes are a leisurely, luxuriant confabulation on “the usefulness, purpose, and pleasures that proceed from books.”In The Reading of Books, Jackson focuses on the relationship between author and reader, describing reading as “the art of extracting essences from books for our own, not the author’s benefit.” Reading should be “a courtship ending in a collaboration” — a creative process in which readers not only share the writers’ aesthetic experiences but also distill them into something more personal.

As Jackson says, reading is not a duty, and if it is not a pleasure it is a waste of time. Entertaining as well as instructive, his “books on books” provide inveterate readers with all things needful: vindication, inspiration, cogitation, and delectation.