Wie sollte man ein Buch lesen?

Unlike what the title suggests, the only advice Virginia Woolf offers here is not to give advice. Her essay on reading is just as relevant today as it was when it was published nearly a hundred years ago. The author does not provide a guide but invites readers to curiously explore the chaos in their own bookshelves, libraries, and bookstores. How does one avoid sinking in this sea of books? Why is it better not to have one's reading dictated? And why should readers become accomplices of writers when they pick up a book? Virginia Woolf's readers devour classics or forgotten works, poetry or dramas, but above all: they read independently and defiantly. Her essay is a passionate plea for the power of the written and read word, with a foreword and afterword by Sheila Heti emphasizing its relevance.

“God, stuck in his heaven, envies human readers – for while his heaven is a place, books lead to countless places. Readers do not get bored like God.” Sheila Heti.