Don't be fooled by the title. Mikita Brottman loves to read.It's merely a ploy to draw the reader in.(Worked on me). What she actually argues against is literary snobbery. She takes offence to those who proclaim that the "Literary Classics' are the only worthwhile way to examine the depths of the human psyche. Brottman discusses a number of genres which she personally feels have given her more insight into the human mind. Some of her favorites are modern bestsellers, tell all bios, true crime books, and psychoanalyst case studies. She makes strong and compelling arguments for all these genres, and I'll probably find myself dipping into some of them. ( )

The Solitary Vice: Against Reading by Mikita Brottman starts with some provocative questions: What if reading isn't as important as we're led to believe? What if reading doesn't make you a better person? Is it "Cool 2 Read," is reading "Fundamental," is it necessary to "Get Real @ The Library"? Brottman bristles at slogans like this and questions whether forcing reading on people is a good thing. She believes reading can in fact be a uniquely valuable activity, but it's all in how you do it: read what excites you, read what helps you grow. Don't read the classics if they bore you (watch a movie version instead).

The "anti-reading" provocation is only the hook for Brottman's book. The remainder is a reading memoir. Brottman shows by example the value she found by reading in genres that are normally looked down upon -- celebrity biography, true crime, comics. She teaches literature and knows her way around the classics and literary theory, yet she also knows much about the different ways that people learn and think. Brottman is not so much against reading as against the simplistic rhetoric and elitism that surrounds it. I liked this book for taking a more subtle stance than most debaters in the perennial "is reading dead?" discussions.

(Reviewed at Question Technology: http://www.questiontechnology.org/blog/2008/03/the-solitary-vi.html) ( )