He knows that life is short and we are all, adults and children, much too busy already. and before long without questions too'.įor teachers and parents, he has all kinds of sensible suggestions for coaxing reluctant readers back into the pages of a book, but he never makes prescriptions or demands. He looks on them with sorrow, not contempt: without books, they are condemned to lead 'a life without answers. If people choose to spend their time doing something else, that's their right. Reading, he says, is mostly about pleasure.

Pennac's main point is very simple: no one is ever going to read a book if they don't want to. The novel begins, in 1958, as 15-year-old German schoolboy, Michael Berg, falls ill outside 36-year-old Hanna Schmitz’s apartment house. You never know, it might prompt someone to start reading.) The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink, explores themes of love and guilt, shame and loss on both a personal and national level, through the complex and moving relationship between Michael Berg and Hanna. You'll get a neat little picture of Pennac's manifesto, illustrated by Quentin Blake, whose excellent drawings are also scattered through the book. (By the way, if you really are too busy to read - or you know someone who is - you should at least spare a few minutes to go to the publisher's website, and click on the link marked 'The Rights of the Reader poster'. Its a type of display that closely replicates the look of a book in other words, its glare-free and mimics the textured look of paper. The other eight are equally wise and liberating. Pennac finishes with a 10-point manifesto: the 10 rights that should be granted to all readers. The teenagers are initially scornful, then gradually seduced and finally even inspired not just to finish the book that their teacher had begun for them, but to explore more and more books (as long as they're not on the syllabus). In the first class of a new term, their teacher opens a book and reads aloud to them. Why would anyone want to do that? Third, presumably drawing on his own experiences as a teacher, he describes how a class of surly teenagers rediscover the joys of reading. It's a wonderfully economical and witty exploration of why we read and why we don't, divided into four sections.įirst, Pennac describes how young children are introduced to the pleasures of reading. This short non-fiction book, originally published in French in 1992 and now translated into English for the second time, has sold a million copies in France. 'ĭaniel Pennac has written several bestselling novels for both children and adults. Drama Romance Post-WWII Germany: Nearly a decade after his affair with an older woman came to a mysterious end, law student Michael Berg re-encounters his former lover as she defends herself in a war-crime trial. Just as you can't make them fall in love, or dream.

And even the most reluctant reader will be seduced by the first sentence: 'You can't make someone read. Allows for the reader to set bookmarks, highlight pieces of text with different. I can thrust a copy of this book into their hands. Most recently read books are easily available using I am reading list.

The reader book