How to read a book

‘How one should read a book’ is an essay by Virginia Woolf, discussed briefly on the radio this morning. so relevant to all of us in lockdown. Woolf urges us to never forget that reading is, above all, pleasurable, but a pleasure that unfolds like the rhizome of a fern, with time, even after having finished the book. Reading a book is a solitary pursuit but in which we are never alone. We become closer to ourselves to the extent that we are another, and we think with another’s brain that questions what we had taken as given. A good book never ends. It comes back as the past does, and as ghosts do, and it prepares us for change.

We are all having to accept huge changes in our life and reading a book can take us into our past, link to experiences, to people and give us a sense of ourselves. We have the time right now to reconsider and take stock of our place, our real needs and values. Woolf was right to enjoy books for opening our minds as we turn the pages.