My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

Readers need not be a fan of Pat Conroy's bestselling novels to enjoy his newest work of nonfiction, My Reading Life.

Conroy has written other nonfiction, but he is best known for his novels, The Prince of Tides, Beach Music and South of Broad. In reading this latest book, divided into chapters that resemble essays yet are not independent of each other, Conroy gives us insight into the reader who became the famous novelist and the people who helped played key roles in his life: a loving mother; an abusive father; an English teacher who was first Conroy's mentor and later his friend. The book gives us a glimpse not only into Conroy's reading -- and writing -- habits but also into his life, a sometimes troubled one with severe depression.

Conroy -- who writes self-effacingly about his love of adjectives, lots of adjectives -- tells the reader how books have shaped his life and how his life has shaped his books. His mother passed her own reading obsession, especially of Gone With the Wind, down to him as a young boy.

Literature, whether by Leo Tolstoy or James Dickey, Tom Wolfe or Jane Austen, became Conroy's ticket to the world, to places, times and people unseen. They also became his solace and his inspiration. To this day, he keeps a copy of Dickey's book, Poems 1957-1967, on his desk and calls it "the finest book of poetry ever published in America." Conroy begins each day with a poem, whether by Dickey, Rumi, Dylan Thomas or another.

"The poets force me back toward the writing life, where the trek takes you into the interior where the right word hides like an ivory-billed woodpecker in the branches of the highest pines," Conroy writes.

Conroy owns thousands of books and apparently has read thousands.

Of War and Peace, he writes, "Tolstoy performs that rarest and most valuable of tasks, one that has all but disappeared from modern fiction. He wrestles with the philosophical issues of how people like you and me can manage to live praiseworthy and contributive lives."

Conroy shares a touch of literary gossip in his book, too. A solemn Alice Walker gave him her autograph but was rude, Arkansan Miller Williams dedicated a poetry reading to him during a writers' conference, and Conroy delivered the eulogy at Dickey's funeral.

Conroy also takes us into the world of those who love and collect books, chiefly himself. We peek into the now-defunct Old New York Book Shop on Juniper Street, where he bought between four- and five-thousand books, including 500 books of poetry. There, he encountered a haunted but sweet young man wearing "a terrific hat and expensive sunglasses." The man, accompanied by three large, muscular men, came in one day looking for books on freaks and bought several hundred dollars worth of merchandise. Conroy later learned the shy young man was Michael Jackson.

Reading Conroy's book is as much about his life and writing as it is about his reading. His book is one I would like to keep in my own humble library. It is an inspiring story. Upon reading it, I picked up a book of Maya Angelou's poetry that had sat untouched in the same place near my bedside for weeks. I also decided to tackle the great book I've never tackled -- War and Peace. I soon began reading Alan Jacobs' new book, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. And perhaps, most importantly, I resolved to take a lesson from Conroy and not let my own troubles and insecurities keep me from pursuing my own reading, and writing, life.