Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books

Novelist Schwartz (Disturbances in the Field) learned to read at the age of three, encouraged by parents whom she describes as ""people of the book."" As a seven-year-old, she was reading every book in her Brooklyn home and remembers being captivated by classics from the Little Leather Library such as ""The Little Mermaid,"" from Andersen's fairy tales; Edward Everett Hale's The Man Without a Country; and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. In this thought-provoking essay, Schwartz links her sense of self to what she has read over a lifetime. Although she acknowledges that literature has not transformed her life or taught her how to live, reading, to Schwartz, is a pure activity that has made her receptive to the ideas of authors who have enlarged her vision of the world. So intimate is the connection between Schwartz and books that have made an impact upon her emotionally that she cannot bear to see the film version, for example, of A Little Princess, because she does not want to see the author's words transformed visually. Author tour. (May)