How to Read Now

(Hardback, Main)

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Description

An exploration and manifesto investigating the power of reading - and our potential to become radically better readers in the world.

How many times have we heard that reading builds empathy That we can travel through books How often have we were heard about the importance of diversifying our bookshelves Or claimed that books saved our life Of course, these beautiful words are sometimes true. But reading is-and can be-more powerful, more relevant, and more vital than we currently let it be.

What do the cliches and good intentions we rely on to talk about the warm fuzzy feeling of reading gloss over or sell short when it comes to the critical skills reading fosters, and the range of emotions reading allows us to explore Castillo illuminates-and insists upon-our potential to become better readers, readers who will wield the power of reading ruthlessly, effectively, and to startling result to enact equity, kindle authentic connection, and clear space for voices to be heard.

As Castillo interrogates and reflects on the stale questions and uncritical proclamations that so often sub in for vital discussion, she takes readers on deep dives through everything from anime to the overlooked novels of Peter Handke to the art of the mix tape, all while mapping the paths toward more lively, more urgent, more inclusive reading. By widening the lens of reading to include the ways we digest all media, Elaine Castillo brings fresh philosophical and moral clout to our discussions of the power of reading.

'Castillo's How To Read Now took my breath away. Energetically brilliant, warmly humane, incisively funny' - Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less

'I gasped, shouted, and holler-laughed while reading these essays... Phenomenal' - R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries

Reviews

Masterly... A book that doesn't seek to shut down the current literary discourse so much as shake it up * New York Times *
Each of the book's eight essays burns bright and hot from start to finish... It's a way of seeing and reading that demands so much more of us but offers even more in return * Los Angeles Times *
Laser-sharp and devastating... A wake-up call * San Francisco Chronicle *
Essays destined to become classics * The Millions *
Tosses a bomb into our tired cultural conversations around reading and empathy to ask tougher and more urgent questions * Chicago Review of Books *

Blazingly fearless... Castillo is hugely talented

* Observer *
Castillo's How To Read Now took my breath away. Energetically brilliant, warmly humane, incisively funny, it whips the tablecloth from under the setting of contemporary reading, politics and intellectual culture in a literary act of daring. It seems there is nothing Castillo can not do. Read How to Read Now now. * Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize -winning author of Less *
I gasped, shouted, and holler-laughed while reading these essays from the phenomenal Elaine Castillo. What powerful writing, what a rigorous mind. For as long as I live, I want to read anything Castillo writes, and you probably do, too. * R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries *
How To Read Now is a powerful punch in criticism's solar plexus: Castillo's take as the 'unexpected reader' is what literature needs now, both an absolute bomb and a balm-a master class in the art of reading. Her art is a corrective and a curative but also just a joy-humorous, insanely erudite, and absolutely necessary for our times. * Gina Apostol, author of Gun Dealers Daughter *
How to Read Now is a wake-up call. A broadside. A rich and brilliant war cry. Elaine Castillo exposes the inadequacy of thinking about books as empathy machines, arguing instead for a type of reading that accepts responsibility and implication; reading as a radical act of awareness and allyship. * Chris Power, author of A Lonely Man *
A radiant, irreverent, rigorous and revolutionary act of reading. Elaine Castillo is on fire and this book, a work of generous cultural stewardship, performs a much-needed, controlled burning. * Olivia Sudjic, author of Asylum Road *
Exciting, important and energising, How to Read Now is the book we need now: a clarion call for decentering whiteness and for a truly decolonised publishing, critical, and reading culture. It reaffirms that writers of colour are here; we are here to hold power to account; we are here to read each other and cheer for each other; we are here to stay. I am so grateful for Elaine Castillo's beautiful mind, and for this vital and moving book. * Preti Taneja, author of Aftermath *
Funny, smart, brilliant, How to Read Now is a tour de force. Castillo skewers popular thought around reading, suggesting a new way forward, in sharp and incisive prose. I'll never read Didion the same way again. * Kasim Ali, author of Good Intentions *
The essays are funny, intelligent, and said all the things I had been waiting for someone to say and more. I loved being in Elaine's brain, as well as her deeply humane commitment to encourage us all to step outside ourselves and see the world - and one another other - anew. * Rebecca Liu *
I cannot say enough about Elaine Castillo's How to Read Now... Check it out * Roxane Gay, on Twitter *
A red-hot grenade... One of my favourite books of the year * Jia Tolentino, on Instagram *

Author Bio

Named one of '30 of the planet's most exciting young people' by the Financial Times, Elaine Castillo was born and raised in the Bay Area. Her debut novel America Is Not the Heart was named one of the best books of 2018 by NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Public Library, The New York Post, The Boston Globe, Real Simple, Lit Hub, and has been nominated for the Elle Award, the Center for Fiction Prize, the Aspen Words Prize, the Northern California Independent Booksellers Book Award, and the California Book Award.