MY READING LIFE: REVIEW AND GUEST REVIEW PLUS GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED
MY READING LIFE

BY PAT CONROY

ABOUT THE BOOK:

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 for the holidays. 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!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Pat Conroy is the bestselling author of nine books: The Boo, The Water is Wide, The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides, Beach Music, My Losing Season, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life and South of Broad. He lives in Fripp Island, South Carolina.


MY OWN REVIEW:

Pat Conroy’s latest book is MY READING LIFE and quite a departure for those who are fans and followers of his work. It is, in fact, a memoir that pays tribute to people and places and books that over the years have inspired Conroy. The memoir still shows Conroy’s sense of humor and delightful writing style. Each chapter is written as an homage to a singular theme, be it book, experience, place, or person that has played a part in Pat Conroy’s life over the years and helped to make him the writer he is today.

Included in the topics over the fifteen different chapters are authors such as James Dickey or books like my favorite as well, GONE WITH THE WIND. While I find it admirable of Mr. Conroy to write such a lovely memoir, and I do think it was written in his always well produced, inimitable style, unless you are a huge fan, I wonder if many will care about the contents? If you enjoy books on the subject of Reading itself, you will be satisfied, but if you are looking another lush, get-lost-in, heart felt story by Pat Conroy, then this is not the book for you. However, if you love the written word and this author, I think you would not regret the time spent on the concisely written memoir as you get to know more about the man, the author, Pat Conroy.  

GUEST REVIEW:

    Guest Reviewer: Alex Leras, retired English Teacher and NASCAR Public Relations Director, responds with her thoughts about Pat Conroy's newest book, MY READING LIFE.

In reading Pat Conroy's book, "My Reading Life", I found myself wavering from enjoying it to the opposite spectrum and thinking why am I wasting my time with this book?  Finally, I finished it and decided Mr. Conroy told some interesting anecdotes but I learned nothing new about this author. Neither did I learn anything new about his previous writings.  I learned he loved reading and books and appreciated his mother's influence in this area, explaining she thought "Gone With the Wind" was "the greatest book ever written".   He named a particular teacher who guided him and encouraged him. Of course, he went back to his relationship with his father.  But all of this his readers know from his previously published works.

Finally, I will note three points he made that stayed with me as I went through the 231 pages.

First,  Conroy writes, "Books are living things and their task lies in their vows of silence." Okay, I get that.

Secondly, he tells the reader, "Here is what I want from a book, what I demand, what I pray for when I take up a novel and begin to read the first sentence: I want everything and nothing less, the full measure of a writer's heart."  Okay, I get that, too.

Finally, Conroy describes a good book: "...it puts readers on their knees. It makes you want to believe in a world you just read about--the one that will make you feel different about the world you thought you lived in, the world that will never be the same."

Conroy's latest did none of the above for this reader.  I have enjoyed his many novels but this work seemed to be just a way for the author to get something published to make a financial return.  No thanks.

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO ADRIENNE AT RANDOM

HOUSE, I HAVE TWO COPIES OF PAT

CONROY'S LATEST BOOK TO GIVE AWAY 

 

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