Book Review: "I'd Rather Be Reading" by Anne Bogel

Is there a better and more fitting title for a book? I think not. In the introduction, Anne Bogel talks of the way you need to know the person before you start recommending them great books since great means something different to each person and perhaps, one person's 'great' is not someone else's. She takes us through what it means to 'confess' as a reader and as something I have taken as a personal attack even goes to stating that there are people out there who don't enjoy James Joyce as much as they perhaps should (there will be no way in Hell that anyone could force me to read Finnegans Wake again, I am so sorry but I hate it with all my soul). So, what else awaits us in this book?

The author talks about how books can find us even though we could be planning our reading. This is something I have definitely experienced and I seem to experience often with books outside of the horror genre. I tend to plan my horror reading but if I discover other things along the way, I will not hesitate to give them a go. Normally, I come out enlightened about something and having read something I would have perhaps never read if it had not fallen into my lap through chance. We are met with the ideas surrounding why we appreciate reading the way we do and what made us not want to put certain books down - can we actually trace it back to the first real book that did that to us? Anne Bogel writes it in a universal way, knowing full well that if you're reading her book then it has probably happened to you in the past.

She moves on to talking about why we read and how we get lost in experiences within books, experiences we may not have in our own real lives but we can definitely have by proxy through descriptions and atmospheres. Books transport us to different worlds, places and times, they connect us with people we either are familiar with or some types that we will never meet at all. We get to see the world that they live in, experience their lives with them and go through what they are going through. Anne Bogel states that this is one of the most beautiful things about reading and I agree that it is. We also have to mention that there is no real risk involved when reading a book - yes, we may be emotionally torn up (and the author does a whole chapter on crying because of books), but there is no inherent actual danger.

The chapter entitled Bookworm Problems left me in stitches because I felt so much of it to be relatable. One of the 'problems' bookworms face for example is forgetting to eat or sleep because they were reading a book. You start reading a really good, long book at 5pm and by the time you've finished the book it's 2am and your head is reeling from what you've just read. Sleep is definitely not happening that night. Honestly, I feel attacked. The fact that this woman brought up regretting not buying a certain book at a sale because you think you have it at home is something foreign to me though. I seem to have some sort of photographic memory of the books I have at home and if I see it in the wild, then...well it depends, which book is it? If it is in my top ten of all time, I'm going to have to adopt it. If not, then I think I should be able to walk away without buying it. I think.

One of the chapters is also about how we document our reading and journal it. The author of the book explains that you should definitely have some system for recording what you read, it doesn't matter how detailed it is or is not. In fact, you're reading mine right now! Lucky you! But she states that the reason for having recorded you reading is because it helps you to pick out what you want to read next. It is a form of direction. Even though we would all rather just be reading the book, I do think it is also a good idea to get your points down on paper or, as I do, type them up for others to read. I have to say, whenever anyone comments on my pieces that it has made them want to read the book - it brings me so much joy.

All in all, this has been the ultimate bookworm read. Like authors like Lucy Mangan, Anne Bogel brings us into a world of reading, gives us hints and tips and yet, talks to us as an old friend. We connect through and over books. And in the words of Anatole Broyard in one of my favourite books, Kafka was the Rage: 'I had a literature rather than a personality, a set of fictions about myself...'