Reflections on reading and reviewing.
Stephen Sondheim’s musical tragedy “Passion” includes a fierce aria to reading. Imprisoned by illness, Fosca sings: “I read to dream/I read to live/In other people’s lives…I read to live/to get away from life!”
Fosca suffers, but she can read. Sadly, learning to read remains a privilege. Books can be burned. Books can be banned (as I write, there is a book-banning bill pending in the House). Librarians have become first responders. Nevertheless, in desperate as well as more ordinary circumstances, readers with access to books will read.
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