Synopsis:
"It’s not that I don’t like people,” writes Maureen Corrigan in her introduction to Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading. “It’s just that there always comes a moment when I’m in the company of others—even my nearest and dearest—when I’d rather be reading a book.” In this delightful memoir, Corrigan reveals which books and authors have shaped her own life—from classic works of English literature to hard-boiled detective novels, and everything in between. And in her explorations of the heroes and heroines throughout literary history, Corrigan’s love for a good story shines."

This is another book on books and/or reading that I do not like. Maybe I shouldn't try again. It's either not a good time for me & this particular book, or I dislike this kind of books.

I gave up on the book, so I won't rate it.

This book travels with me to Mainz. I’ll put it on the book buffet, hoping that someone will pick it up and make it continue its journey.

Selected from the table at the wonderful BC convention in Mainz to be added to my enormous Mount TBR.
I couldn't resist a book about reading.

Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books by Maureen Corrigan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


When I started reading the introduction about how she had loved reading from an early age, etc., etc., etc., I found it didn’t keep my attention. But once Corrigan started expounding on her theories about female extreme-adventure tales, using one of my favourites, Jane Eyre, as one of her main examples, I was hooked. It then made it natural to talk about her own female extreme-adventure with infertility and adoption, without turning it into a blow-by-blow agony autobiography (the correct word escapes me at the moment).

Even though I haven’t read any of her main examples in the chapters of hard-boiled detective novels, I was intrigued by her theory that they are the depository of literature about the process of work and working class life. The final section, about Catholic ‘secular saints’ in autobiographies was also fascinating. There were a couple of unfamiliar concepts such as ‘black Irish’, by which she means dark-haired, dark-eyed Irish Americans, as far as I can tell. Do real Irish people use this description, I wonder? She also suggests that WWII was the time when Irish Americans (and probably other minorities) became integrated into the American psyche as ‘one of us’. That seems very plausible. I am somewhat sceptical about the idea that Catholic children’s and teens’ fiction with its moral stance of piety, sacrifice and patriotism (especially during WWII) was really confined to Catholic books. I suspect older children’s books of all denominations and none tended to take the same moralistic tone. Laura Ingalls Wilder was Protestant as far as I know, but surely her family’s story contains exactly the same respect for hard work and sacrifice.

In any case, this ended up being a fascinating book and now I’ve discovered Maureen Corrigan’s NPR Fresh Air book reviews are available as a podcast, I may start listening to them.