cover image Speaking of Reading

Speaking of Reading

Nadine Rosenthal. Heinemann Educational Books, $23.95 (213pp) ISBN 978-0-435-08119-5

Rosenthal (Ten Career Readers), chair of the learning assistance department, City College of San Francisco, has collected 77 short interviews, here shaped into essays, in which interviewees describe how reading-or not reading-has affected their lives. The interesting result includes accounts by writer Isabel Allende, basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and feminist Gloria Steinem as well as testimony from non-famous people from all walks of life. Rosenthal contrasts the experiences of those who have enjoyed reading since childhood with those of people who learned to read as adults. She has divided the pieces into eight chapters reflecting eight types of readers: readers of literature; frustrated readers; those influenced by childhood reading; voracious readers; habitual readers; those learning to read as adults; information readers; and those aware of their reading process. Since many experiences overlap, these categories seem arbitrary and forced. Concluding with a useful chapter on techniques good readers can use to assist other, developing readers, this book will be of greatest interest to those involved in reading education. (July)