Bestselling author Pat Conroy acknowledges the books which have shaped him and celebrates the profound effect reading has already established on his life.

Pat Conroy, the beloved American storyteller, is a voracious reader. Beginning as a childhood interest that bloomed into a life-long friend, reading continues to be Conroy’s portal to the world, both towards the farthest edges of the globe and to the deepest chambers from the human being soul. His passions range broadly, from Milton to Tolkien, Philip Roth to Thucydides, about My Reading Lifestyle encompassing poetry, history, viewpoint, and any mesmerizing story of his indigenous South. He has for years kept notebooks in which he records words and phrases and expressions, as time passes creating a huge reservoir of lively turns of term, stunning flashes of explanation, and snippets of delightful sound, all simply for his love of language. But for Conroy reading is not simply a satisfaction to be enjoyed in off-hours or a source of inspiration for his personal writing. It would hardly end up being an exaggeration to declare that reading has kept his life, and if not his life then certainly his sanity.

In My Reading Life, Conroy revisits a life of reading through a range of wonderful and often surprising anecdotes: sharing the pleasures of the local library’s vast cache along with his mother when he was a guy, recounting his decades-long relationship using the English teacher who directed him onto the road of words, and describing a profoundly influential period he spent in Paris, aswell as reflecting on various other pivotal people, locations, and experiences. His tale is a moving and personal one, girded by wisdom and an undeniable credibility. Anyone who not only likes the pleasures of reading but also believes in the energy of books to form a life will find here the best defense of that credo.