Book Review: Am I Here Alone? (Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live)

This collection of short essays by writer Peter Orner had me thinking a million thoughts about how we read and how we write. Wow. I picked up Orner’s Am I Alone Here? Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live by chance — it was on the library shelf next to something else I was looking at. I picked up Orner, and didn’t want to put it down. So I didn’t.

Orner, a novelist (but one I have not read or even heard of before), writes from a very different slant of reader. First of all, his eclectic tastes in authors and books gave me little center of gravity, but that wasn’t a problem. I wanted to know who these writers were that I didn’t know. I reveled in his stories of finding books in corners of used book stores. I wanted to know the stories of the stories, and the stories themselves.

Orner’s brilliant approach to these essays is to use various novels and writers and stories as a “way in” to think about his life, and life in general. Literature as a lens on our life. It’s hard to explain his technique in this book but Orner’s perceptions and voice are so strong here, it’s as if you pulled up a milk crate in his garage studio, plucked a book from his stacks and stacks, and started to talk over coffee about literature and life.

Even as you read about Orner’s connection to texts, you will begin to ponder your own. Or, at least, I did. That makes for a powerful and personal reading experience.

Peace (between the pages),
Kevin

 

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