Book Report: “On Reading Well” by Karen Swallow Prior

You’re not supposed to read a book that is about books. You’re supposed to read the books themselves and learn how to draw insight from them on your own. It’s how you grow. The worst example would be that you didn’t read The Tempest, but you act like you did because you read the Cliff Notes. But those are the thoughts of someone else. That’s what they thought about The Tempest. The real reason to read the Tempest is to find out what did you think of The Tempest?

This is a book about books, but not really. I would not have you to be ignorant, because if you are a person who thinks that books about books are a waste of time, I don’t want you to pass this one by. It is a book about Virtue and how we can extract and learn and define Virtue by reading good books. That’s what finally drew me in. I hate to make it sound like something mystical happened, but the right books always seem to pop up for me when I’m curious about something or when I’ve heard something before, but hadn’t listened well enough.

I had been listening to a podcast and they were talking about the Cardinal Virtues, which were stated early on by Plato and Aristotle, but Christendom picked them up, because, luckily enough, they happened to be right about it. We added Faith, Hope, and Love later on from I Corinthians 13, and then more were included to counteract the Seven Deadly Sins. These virtues are what On Reading Well was written to teach.

I’m not sure we as a people, meaning Christians, are doing enough in this culture to “add to” our faith like we’ve been reminded to do by the Apostle Peter. We do well enough to point out what is wrong, but are we adding to our faith what is honorable and commendable? Sometimes I think we believe if we stay away from the bad stuff, we’re doing just fine, but we have to remember that is not causing us to grow. As children of the Most High, if we aren’t growing up, we’re stunted. On Reading Well will help you to do that.

I follow Karen Swallow Prior on social media, and everything I’ve seen her post is balanced, thoughtful, wise, and written in a spirit of teaching. So as you flip the pages of this book, that’s exactly what you get. The parts that were most beneficial to me were when she would look back at the history of a word and show what it really means. Here’s a sample:

Envy, in fact, is the vice that, in classical tradition, opposes kindness. Perhaps this seems strange until we look at what kindness truly is.
Kindness isn’t mere niceness. Although kind and nice are nearly synonymous now, the history of both words shows a once-sharp difference that is still helpful to consider today. Nice comes from a Latin word that means “unknowing” or “ignorant” and in Middle English came to mean “senseless” or “foolish”…
Kind comes from the same root word from which we get the word kin. To be kind, then, is to treat someone like they are family. To posses the virtue of kindness is to be in the habit of treating all people as if they were family.

From Chapter Eleven entitled “Kindness” pg 207

The second thing I benefited the most from reading this book is the personal conviction I came under for comparing myself to most of these stories (which is exactly the point of the book). It forced me to be honest with myself about how humble I am, how kind I am, how much wisdom I lack or self-control I don’t exhibit. It challenged me to do better. And that is the reason to read books (which is something she mentioned as well).

And so I close with something I try to tell everyone that I can. Read until you find someone who you feel speaks for you, with words you never thought you could conjure. Then, find out who influenced them, and read those books. Its a reason I also recommend reading the Preface, the Introduction, and looking in the back for the references in the bibliography. On Reading Well is a good book that acts like what I call a “hub”- a stopping off point to lead you to other books.

homework for you to do at home

• Here’s some quotes from the book.
• Joy Clarkson with some wisdom from The Great Divorce
• And a video of the audio of a chapter from Mere Christianity since its a free country and all

CS Lewis explaining more about Virtue in the way only he can