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Wild Readers

by Ben Fountain

Reading Quirks is a work of nonfiction. You have in your hands an anthropological study of a strange and far-ran-ging human tribe, a tribe that gets from the reading of books the kind of happiness that other people derive from wrestling alligators. Everything in these pages is true; more than that, it is all scientifically true. We read in the tub, on the toilet, in the hospital emergency room, while showering or brushing our teeth, standing in line at the post office, waiting for the subway, the plane, the bus (“Oh, it’s raining?”), while walking the dog, riding a bike, swaying in a shady hammock. We agree with Borges, that heaven must be something like a library. We secretly dog-ear pages, and feel bad about ourselves afterwards. When we spot someone with a book, we’ll sprain our necks trying to get a glimpse of the cover. Our way of prepping for the apocalypse is to stockpile books, and surely the hardest part of packing for a trip is deciding which books to take, stalked as we are by the ever-present existential dread that someday, somewhere, we’ll find ourselves without anything to read. It’s not that we’re anti-social; far from it. It’s just that we often prefer to be silently social with the people on the page, who are, let’s face it, usually more interesting and entertaining than the flesh-and-blood versions.

Reading Quirks is particularly fine in exploring the olfac-tory dimension of our tribal culture. The crisp menthola-ted tang of a brand-new book makes it impossible to start reading without a good get-to-know-you sniff first. The potency of old books is even stronger, with their warm, yeasty smells of an after-hours bakery. This is the very odor of remembrance of things past, not unlike opening a tin of soda crackers manufactured during the reign of Edward VII. Reading Quirks is equally brave in tackling the great taboo, the dark side, if you will, of bibliomania. Borrowing books, lending books, one friend to another;

Ben Fountain is the author of collection of short stories Brief Encounters with Che Guevara(Ecco Press, 2006) and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Ecco Press, 2012) –adapted in 2016 into a major motion picture, directed by Ang Lee. Last year he also published his essay on Trump’s 2016 campaign Beautiful Country Burn Again (Ecco Press, 2018). He has received the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fic-tion, and a Whiting Writers’ Award, among other honors and awards.