The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading Writing, and the World of Books

The great Canadian novelist Robertson Davies spent his long life in love with books. This posthumous collection of two dozen essays stands as the lively recollections of a great reader: Davies talks praises the books he's loved, damns the books he's hated, and seeks to answer the eternal question of why we read books. And while Davies writes with great authority, he's thankfully never pedantic, and his comments about books, which range from children's titles to Ulysses, are always delivered in a charmingly unpretentious manner. The individual essays are all beautifully written, and cracking this book will no doubt encourage readers to track down many of the authors and titles that Davies covered.