A thoughtful reader pointed out a wonderful list written by French author Daniel Pennac, in The Rights of the Reader.
As someone who loves to read–practically to the exclusion of everything else–I love this list.
The 10 Inalienable Rights of the Reader
1. The right not to read
2. The right to skip
3. The right not to finish a book — this was a habit I cultivated as part of my research for Better Than Before. Now I have so much more time to read the books I love.
4. The right to re-read — I love to re-read
5. The right to read anything
6. The right to “Bovary-ism,” a textually transmitted disease (the right to mistake a book for real life)
7. The right to read anywhere
8. The right to dip in — my husband got me started on the practice of reading multiple books at once
9. The right to read out loud — my younger daughter reads aloud to me every night, such a wonderful tradition
10. The right to be silent
If you’d like to see the list as illustrated by Quentin Blake, look here.
If you’re interested in more ideas about “Reading Better Than Before,” you can download my one-page list of suggestions here. It’s funny–I wrote several of these one-pagers, and I thought that “Working Better Than Before,” “Eating Better Than Before,” and “Exercising Better Than Before“ would be more popular than the one about reading. But go figure! Reading is the most popular, from what I can tell.
What do you think of the list? Anything you’d add–or with which you disagree?
Gretchen Rubin is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Happiness Project—an account of the year she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier—and the recently released Happier at Home and Better Than Before. On her popular blog, The Happiness Project, she reports on her daily adventures in the pursuit of happiness. For more doses of happiness and other happenings, follow Gretchen on Facebook and Twitter.
Image courtesy of Glen Noble.
