Fortunately, the gifted editor Maxwell Perkins was able to take the trunk full of words that Wolfe would dump in his office and mold it into some semblance of a story. Unfortunately, he leaves many readers in a cloud of dust on a country road with no idea which way is the best path back to their reality. He tries to write as truthfully as he can about how he perceives things. There is certainly something beyond most of us in the writings of Thomas Wolfe. He talks in this book about his reverence for Thomas Wolfe and freely admits that some of his weaknesses as a writer come from maybe loving Wolfe too much. Professional jealousy is a green eyed monster with fangs and protruding spikes that can punch holes in the most substantial of friendships. He was a fan of other writers, but admits that sometimes being friends with them can be treacherous. The gentle madness that has plagued many of us never did let go of him, and for the rest of his life, he continued to add books to his personal library. When he lived in Atlanta, he started hanging out at this bookstore called The Old New York Book Shop, and for the first time in his life, he became a collector of books. Even this book, My Reading Life, had me tearing up at several points. Life tends to be bittersweet, and the highs and lows of Conroy’s life have been mountainous and cavernous. Whenever you read a Conroy book, you are going to cry until you laugh and laugh until you cry. He has mined his life for those touch points that resonate with readers because the pain is real, and the joy is genuine. It is impossible to separate the man/boy from the writing. I can say that I met Conroy in 1995, but I really met him in 1986 when I read Prince of Tides. He was by 1995 assured a place on the bestseller list with any book he wanted to publish, but it was easy to see, by the way he interacted with his fans, that he was not taking anything for granted. Prince of Tides had been a huge hit for him in 1986. His cheeks were rosy, and his stark white hair formed a nimbus around his head. He kept the large crowd that was there to see him laughing and smiling throughout his whole presentation. He oozed Southern charm and flashed his razor honed wit. It was during his Beach Music tour back in 1995. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Pat Conroy at a book signing in Marin County, California. ”My mother’s voice and my father’s fists are the two bookends of my childhood, and they form the basis of my art.” Anyone who not only enjoys the pleasures of reading but also believes in the power of books to shape a life will find here the greatest defense of that credo.īONUS: This ebook edition includes an excerpt from Pat Conroy's The Death of Santini. His story is a moving and personal one, girded by wisdom and an undeniable honesty. In My Reading Life, Conroy revisits a life of reading through an array of wonderful and often surprising anecdotes: sharing the pleasures of the local library’s vast cache with his mother when he was a boy, recounting his decades-long relationship with the English teacher who pointed him onto the path of letters, and describing a profoundly influential period he spent in Paris, as well as reflecting on other pivotal people, places, and experiences. It would hardly be an exaggeration to claim that reading has saved his life, and if not his life then surely his sanity. But for Conroy reading is not simply a pleasure to be enjoyed in off-hours or a source of inspiration for his own writing. He has for years kept notebooks in which he records words and expressions, over time creating a vast reservoir of playful turns of phrase, dazzling flashes of description, and snippets of delightful sound, all just for his love of language. His interests range widely, from Milton to Tolkien, Philip Roth to Thucydides, encompassing poetry, history, philosophy, and any mesmerizing tale of his native South. Starting as a childhood passion that bloomed into a life-long companion, reading has been Conroy’s portal to the world, both to the farthest corners of the globe and to the deepest chambers of the human soul. Pat Conroy, the beloved American storyteller, is a voracious reader. Bestselling author Pat Conroy acknowledges the books that have shaped him and celebrates the profound effect reading has had on his life.
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