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Title: A Voice from the Attic: Essays on the Art of Reading by Robertson Davis, Robertson Davies ISBN: 0-14-012081-5 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: September, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.95

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Average Customer Rating: 2.4 (5 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: An impassioned plea for better readers
Comment: Although billed as a collection, this series of essays holds its own as an extended monologue. Davies, as erudite a reader and writer as you will ever discover, is not for the faint of head. In his argument here, he attempts to describe why reading--intense, concentrated reading--can be valued as art. The likely argument against this idea is that reading is not an act of creation, which art aspires to. He quickly deflates that argument with a description of reading that could apply just as well to performance art.

Although some of the writers he mentions here will likely be unknown to modern readers (they were certainly unusual to me), the points he makes are universal. We are in need of this even more today than when it was written.

Rating: 4
Summary: Thoughtful and engaging
Comment: This book is an extrememly thoughtful commentary on the nature of reading and what it means to be a bibliophile, especially in today's age. It can come across as somewhat stuffy and self-important, but Robertson Davies' thoughts and opinions are varied and resonating enough to overcome that. He doesn't capitulate to the lowest common denominator, or present reading as a pursuit only worthwhile if one reads a predetermined list of "great books". his chapter on humour and comedic writing throughout the ages is priceless. It isn't a book for everyone, but it's a welcome relief from the endless parade of critics who typecast the typical reader as "nobody' if they haven't read a set list of prerequisite books.

Rating: 1
Summary: stuffy, typical
Comment: Conservative, stuffy voice, uncomfortable with new and innovative literature, about 200 years behind the times... And also the whole canadian bit alienates readers because its only interesting to canadians of course and nobody really cares outside of there. And he talks as if he's on the level of some of the greates writers but really he is pretty mediocre compared to the mad writing of the greats of now (DFW, Pynchon, Powers etc.).