As Gilbar writes in his introduction, "The essays in this book are not so much about books as about reading. Most of the pieces speak of the writers' personal experience as readers. Some are more pontifical. But what they all have in common, I hope, is that they are themselves good reading." How right he is! Just sample treasures like Nabokov's "Good Readers, Good Writers," Calvino's "Why Read the Classics?" Proust's "On Reading Ruskin," or Brodkey's "Reading, the Most Dangerous Game." And the list goes on: Montaigne, Hazlitt, Hesse, Miller, Greene, Fowles, and many more, all devoted to - indeed passionate about - reading and about (as Emerson said) "Books, vital and spermatic, not leaving the reader what he was."