Summary of Robert Gottlieb's Avid Reader

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 I began as I would go on, reading. By the time I was four, my grandfather had shown me how to do it, mostly by having me follow along as he read to me. I loved dogs, and read many books about them.

#2 I grew up reading the classic children’s books, as well as the more recent ones. The key books of my childhood were the twelve novels by Arthur Ransome, beginning with Swallows and Amazons, published in 1930.

#3 I was a sickly child, so I was home from school a lot. I spent my time reading and listening to radio soap operas. When I returned to school in 1950, everything had changed: Alcoholism, abortion, and adultery had barged in, and the soaps were migrating to TV.

#4 My family didn’t have a lot of money, but we had a sweet popular culture. I loved listening to the radio, and I was obsessed with comic books and television shows.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Aug 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822582637

IRB Media

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Insights on Robert Gottlieb's Avid Reader

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I began as I would go on, reading. By the time I was four, my grandfather had shown me how to do it, mostly by having me follow along as he read to me. I loved dogs, and read many books about them.

#2

I grew up reading the classic children’s books, as well as the more recent ones. The key books of my childhood were the twelve novels by Arthur Ransome, beginning with Swallows and Amazons, published in 1930.

#3

I was a sickly child, so I was home from school a lot. I spent my time reading and listening to radio soap operas. When I returned to school in 1950, everything had changed: Alcoholism, abortion, and adultery had barged in, and the soaps were migrating to TV.

#4

My family didn’t have a lot of money, but we had a sweet popular culture. I loved listening to the radio, and I was obsessed with comic books and television shows.

#5

I had a genteel upbringing in Boston and New York, and I loved going to the Met and listening to the most famous musicians of the day. I had my own records, and I loved listening to the Glyndebourne recordings of the Mozart operas.

#6

My father, who was from a more typical immigrant family, had a love of books. He would go to Brentano’s, America’s premier bookstore, and indulge himself with half a dozen books nonfiction. He completely understood when I called him in his law office one day and asked if he could get me a two-volume boxed set of Proust for six dollars.

#7

I had a strange habit of reading books in a single marathon session, usually until I fell asleep. I was not a philosophical person, and I did not have any religious guidance. I found my moral compass in the novels I was reading.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

My first school was the Dunham Day School in the Bronx, a small and somewhat precious private school in the West Nineties which still exists. It was called Birch-Wathen, having been founded by two ladies: Miss Birch, who presided over the high school, and Mrs. Wathen, who oversaw the lower school.

#2

I had a difficult time at Birch-Wathen, and I was often frustrated by the teachers and the other students. I didn’t fit in with the other students or the teachers, and I didn’t have any friends.

#3

I spent the winter of seventh grade with my mother in Tucson, Arizona. The ostensible reason was my health, but the real reason was a crisis in my parents’ marriage. I barely remember Tucson or the large, agreeable public school.

#4

I had a passion for the theater when I was 13. I would spend my allowance on tickets to see the shows that had opened up good reviews that week.