Reading Together - by Katarzyna Bartoszynska (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A lively and thoughtful exploration of how book clubs change the way we read.

In this engaging and vivacious memoir, college professor Katarzyna Bartoszyńska thinks back on various book clubs she has been a part of. Through brief discussions of a variety of novels, memoirs, and nonfiction works such as Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Marjane Satrapi's Chicken with Plums, and Alma Guillermoprieto's Dancing in Cuba, she considers how the things she has learned in book club discussions differ from what she tries to teach students in her literature classes. As she muses on the various benefits that we imagine reading offers, she describes the unique knowledge that book clubs can provide.

Review Quotes

"As an academic, Bartoszyńska is accustomed to leading students down well-trodden paths, and while she endeavors to leave enough space in the curriculum for ideas to flourish, she notes that book clubs provide an environment in which "the joys of a text multiply in surprising and unexpected ways when you read it with others". . . Reading fiction has been shown to build empathy, but Bartoszyńska points out that reading with others who are different from you adds another dimension." -- "Booklist (starred)"

About the Author

Katarzyna Bartoszyńska teaches in the Department of Literatures in English and the Program of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Ithaca College. She is the author of Estranging the Novel: Poland, Ireland, and Theories of World Literature and also works as a translator, most recently of Zygmunt Bauman's writing.