Book review: ‘Why We Read’ by Josephine Greywoode (ed.)

Why We Read comprises 70 short essays by assorted writers on why people read. According to the blurb, it’s specifically about why people read non-fiction, although some of the essayists can’t help sneaking fiction into the brief.

The essays themselves are fine, although there is inevitably some repetition of ideas: of course we read to learn new stuff, to see the world from different perspectives, and to journey inside other people’s minds. Richard Dawkins makes an impassioned plea for a literature of science, and raises the obvious but important point that it’s ridiculous to lump together diverse genres of writing into a single category defined by what it’s not—I prefer the term factual writing to non-fiction. Seb Falk is excellent on the delights of the history of science, while cautioning against the perpetuation of scientific myths and Whiggish tales of heroic individuals. Jordan Ellenberg describes the delights of dipping into (pseudo-) random library books, chosen because they ‘look lonely’ and unread. Thomas Halliday contrasts the ‘lens’ of factual writing with the ‘mirror’ of fiction. Daniel Lieberman and David Wengrow both explore the astonishing fact that our modified monkey brains are capable of reading at all. And Slavoj Žižek is as incomprehensible and pretentious as ever.

An enjoyable read.