Reading Writers Reading: Canadian Authors' Reflections

David E. Kemp is professor emeritus of drama at Queen’s University.

This beautifully produced book documents the reflections of 165 Canadian
writers on the transformative experience of reading. As Russell Morton
Brown comments in his foreword, “Reading about reading exerts its own
fascination and brings its own pleasures.”

Each set of reflections in the book is accompanied by a studio
photograph of the writer by photographer and editor Danielle Schaub. The
writers are a diverse group: English, French, and First Nations;
established and emerging; and originating from practically every region
of the country.

Alison Gordon and Mavis Gallant express one of the book’s recurring
themes: before writing comes reading—a fact that many fledgling
authors would do well to bear in mind. Helen Humphreys describes reading
as “that freefall into the soft room of imagination.” Brian Fawcett
tells us that reading matters because it makes us fully human. And
Aretha Van Herk just about says it all: “Reading is a transportation,
a disappearance, a consanguinity of spirit. The words in books link us
to both anguish and joy. … Between the pages of a book lie comfort and
consolation, glory and transfiguration, lamentation and disgrace. There
is no greater escape, no greater intimacy, no wilder seduction.”

For ease of reference, the author’s names should have been listed
alphabetically in the table of contents. But that’s a minor quibble.
Reading Writers Reading offers a revealing glimpse into a nation’s
collective creative consciousness: no library can afford to be without
it.