Reading Through the Night

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Pub Date 12 Jun 2019 | Archive Date 15 Jul 2019
Darcie Rowan PR | University of Virgina Press

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Description

You’ll discover a moving memoir, a celebration of reading, and probably the most perfect book-club choice to come along in a while.

Reading Through the Night is a memoir of self-discovery through literary fiction. 

“A surprising, ambitious memoir that raises important questions about what it is that we are doing when we read. Through a series of literary adventures Tompkins shares a journey to new self-knowledge. Her story will engage all book lovers for whom reading is a lifeline.”—Nancy K. Miller, the Graduate Center, CUNY

READING THROUGH THE NIGHT

Jane Tompkins, a renowned literature professor and award-winning author, thought she knew what reading was until—struck by a debilitating illness—she found herself reading day and night because it was all she could do. A lifelong lover of books, she realized for the first time that if you pay close attention to your reactions as you read, literature can become a path of self-discovery.


In READING THROUGH THE NIGHT, Tompkins divulges how she underwent a very personal journey of transformation by finding a new way of reading. Tompkins’s inner journey begins when she becomes unexpectedly captivated by an account of friendship between two writers to whom she’d given little thought: Paul Theroux and V. S. Naipaul. Theroux’s memoir launches her on a path of introspection that stretches back to the first weeks of her life in a Bronx hospital, and then quickly forward to her relationship with her mother and the structure of her present marriage.

Her reading experience, intensified by the feelings of powerlessness and loss of self that come with chronic illness, eventually expands to include writers such as Henning Mankell and Ann Patchett, Alain de Botton, Elena Ferrante, and Anthony Trollope. As she makes her way through their books, she recognizes herself in them, stumbling across patterns of feeling and behavior that have ruled her without her knowing it—envy, a desire for fame, fear of confronting the people she loves, a longing for communion.

The reader, along with Tompkins, comes to the realization that literature can be not only a source of information and entertainment, a balm and a refuge, but also—and perhaps most importantly—a key to unlocking long-forgotten memories that lead to a new understanding of one’s life.


Jane Tompkins is a teacher and scholar known for her work on popular women’s novels of the American nineteenth century. Her book on Western novels and films, West of Everything, won a prize from the American Popular Culture Association, and her memoir of teaching and learning, A Life in School, received an award from the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

You’ll discover a moving memoir, a celebration of reading, and probably the most perfect book-club choice to come along in a while.

Reading Through the Night is a memoir of self-discovery through...


A Note From the Publisher

For most people, reading is an amazing escape from stresses, while opening up creativity of the mind. But for someone who finds him/herself with a chronic illness, with most days confined to a bed. Jane Tompkins discovered a new life in reading. This is where she learned about her own life through the works of literature. lingering over books by Naipaul, Theroux, Dickinson, and Patchett and letting their stories open windows to her own world.

For most people, reading is an amazing escape from stresses, while opening up creativity of the mind. But for someone who finds him/herself with a chronic illness, with most days confined to a bed...


Advance Praise

Reading Through the Night is a perfect book for anyone who believes literature should amount to more than diversion and fodder for term papers.... Tompkins becomes our own suffering servant, though perhaps less a [Kurt] Wallander than a bedridden Alice James, nearly forgotten in the shadow of celebrated men, but scribbling all the while to produce something equally essential, equally profound. (San Francisco Chronicle)


A disarmingly intimate chronicle of reading as self-discovery. (Booklist)


A surprising, ambitious memoir that raises important questions about what it is that we are doing when we read. Through a series of literary adventures Tompkins shares a journey to new self-knowledge. Her story will engage all book lovers for whom reading is a lifeline. (Nancy K. Miller, the Graduate Center, CUNY, author of Breathless: An American Girl in Paris)


A woman lies in bed, reading. She isn’t well, and some days reading is all she can do. As she reads she comes to understand a lot about herself―her upbringing, her fears and her envy, her privileges, her life’s steps and missteps. She is not reading for culture or academic privilege. She is reading to save her life. I loved reading with Tompkins as she lingers over books by Naipaul, Theroux, Dickinson, and Patchett and lets their stories open windows of all kinds. Every book group in the country should be reading Reading through the Night, for the conversations it will provoke, for the reading it will inspire, and for its captivating wisdom and grace. (Alice Kaplan, author of Looking for "The Stranger": Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic)


Reading through the Night is a vital manifesto on the importance of reading. It is not simply a reminder that literature can enrich us; it is a statement about the ability to live a rich and fulfilling life of the mind even when the body betrays us. Jane Tompkins guides us through what might have been a devastating loss―a disease that deprives her of her basic physical abilities―but instead becomes a new way of experiencing the world, and understanding her personal experience in the world, through a closer and more attentive relationship with words on the page. I have a profoundly altered appreciation for what literature offers us after reading this memoir. (Alden Jones, author of The Blind Masseuse: A Traveler's Memoir from Costa Rica to Cambodia)



Reading Through the Night is a perfect book for anyone who believes literature should amount to more than diversion and fodder for term papers.... Tompkins becomes our own suffering servant, though...


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Interviews available via email 


Available Editions

EDITION Hardcover
ISBN 9780813941592
PRICE $27.95 (USD)

Average rating from 27 members


Featured Reviews

Reading Through the Night is a book that will satisfy any bookworm's desire to become an English professor. In this work, Jane Tompkins masterfully explains several factors that influence the reading life, from a book's energy to the author's tone to the culture which influenced it. This memoir was enriched with text from literature like V.S. Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the friendship between authors Naipaul and Thoreaux. For anyone wanting to know more about how chronic illness can affect your reading life, Reading Thorough the Night is an absolute must-read.

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Jane Tompkins was a respected professor of literature and award-winning author until she developed a debilitating chronic illness that sapped her energy, leaving her unable to travel, work, or even– on her bad days– write. With little choice but to stay in bed, Tompkins turned to books for comfort. But rather than providing an escape from the changes her illness imposed on her life, Tompkins discovered that a closer examination of what she read could provide profound insights into her own life as it was, and how much it had changed.

Tompkins’s path to self-discovery began with Sir Vidia’s Shadow, Paul Theroux’s memoir about his friendship with Nobel-prize winning author V.S. Naipaul. Though Tompkins is discomfited by Naipaul’s casual disregard for the people around him, she is nevertheless fascinated by the authors’ friendship, how it builds, and ultimately collapses around them. Tompkins couldn’t put the book down and often returned to it before venturing into the authors’ other works. In them, she found disheartening stories about unhappy people, but from these stories and her examination of her responses to them, Tompkins began to realize things about herself– the truth about her own envious feelings, how she learned to ride a motorcycle in part because she was anxious about her upcoming (and ultimately doomed) marriage, or the many ways her current husband expressed his love with her realizing it.

Though she often brings up anecdotes about reading books by other authors such as Robert Pirsig or Anthony Trollope, Tompkins’s main focus is on Naipaul and Theroux and she makes a deep dive into their selected works. The experience is often uncomfortable, but she sticks with it, as the reader must also do if they are unfamiliar with Naipaul or Theroux. Sticking with the discomfort, Tompkins insists, is a way to discover new things about yourself and, ultimately, to heal.

“If someone asked me why I write, that would be my answer, too, the desire to be known. This is a spiritual need, a longing as deep as any that we have. To be known is to have one’s existence validated, to be affirmed in our very being, simply by being seen.”

Most reading memoirs tend to be lighter affairs, providing amusing anecdotes about an author’s adventures in reading and the unexpected happenings of a bookish life. Few of them provide the deeper investigation of the self that Tompkins undertakes. By staying with her discomfort- whether it was a disturbing scene in a book or a realization regarding her own faults- she shows patient readers that discomfort is not a terrible thing and that it can help us more than we think it can, but only if we allow ourselves to really process what we’re taking in.

In an age when “I felt a little uncomfortable” is reason enough to stop reading a book, stop watching a movie, or drop out of a college class, we rarely hear someone encouraging us to sit with that discomfort and examine its roots. This is a shame, because if Tompkins’s own insights are anything to go by, a deeper examination of ourselves may help us to become better people.

“If you stick with the process, the ghost will rise from the test and deliver its message. And should you discover something you’d rather not know, all the better. Such knowledge is precious and leads to healing. It took me two years to find out whay I was so enthralled by Sir Vidia’s Shadow, and I’m glad I did: two years is not long. Books that captivate without stirring up any unwanted thoughts or emotions are wonderful; books that shine a light into dark places are like gold.

If a book is a conversation taking place across distance and time, it is worth remembering what a real conversation is. It is not two people talking at each other, just waiting for each other to pause long enough to toss their own opinions into the air. A good conversation occurs when both parties are actively listening to each other and building upon what is being said. In Reading Through the Night, Tompkins shows us that books are the best kinds of conversations and that the person we learn the most about just might be ourselves.

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Reading Through the Night is a memoir-in-books. Tompkins recounts how delving into reading helped her during a health crisis. An interesting and very English-nerd sort of read. A good choice for book lovers.

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I would like to say that Reading Through the Night by Jane Tompkins is my kind of book, but only up to a certain point. I enjoyed the academic perspective, the depth of her analysis, I don't think I liked the extended quotations from Theroux's or Naipaul's works that much.
But reading is an engaging activity, especially for the author, and if something niggles you, you should pursue it and try to find an explanation. For Jane Tompkins, that something was the long friendship between the two authors and its brusque ending. She tries to understand the persons behind their books and psychoanalyze them: what experiences in their lives made them who they are, influenced their view of the world, their relationships with others. Of course, these experiences might resonate with the reader's own experiences, one might find out more about oneself, if they are introspective enough.
Apart from the long descriptions of the two authors' books - which are normal for a literary criticism book, you might say - I really liked how easily the sentences flow, how skillfully Jane Tompkins's thoughts are put into words. I can imagine, given her illness, how painstakingly slow the process of writing was, but her lively, original style and her honesty really won me over. Yes, we all should read books like a professor.

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Book lovers this is the book for you.A book full of reading of books to grab.for your own book pile.When James Tompkins is healing books are her medication .A meditative book on life comfort found in stories.A book nerds dream read,#netgalley #uofvirginiapress

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Though I am only 40% done , I absolutely am enjoying reading this. I have always been a fan of reading about the books - most of which I would not get to read. But knowing the author's feelings and finding parallel to your own thoughts is a pleasure. This book though talks of reading in a phase of the author life when she was devoid of most outdoor activity but the reflections on her life coupled with her reads is wonderfully done.

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This book was a great self reflection by the author on reading habits and chronic illness.

I enjoyed reading this very much, even though, there were many things that I simply were not able to relate to. i.e. chronic illness and Paul Thoreaux.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Darcie Rowan PR, University of Virgina Press for this advanced readers copy. Release date for this book is set for June 2019.

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I can’t say enough good things about this book, I really enjoyed it. I have been in a reading funk and didn’t hold out much hope of reading this all the way through. I started it at bed time and finally forced myself to put it down with 4 chapters left. I have purchased a copy for my Mom and Sister!

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This was a thoughtful, well-written book about a woman suffering from debilitating illness. She spends her hours reading books of all kinds and makes a strong case about the importance of reading and stepping outside our comfort zones when it comes to choosing what to read.

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Jane Tompkins gives readers so very much to think about through her memoir Reading Through The Night. I am so in awe of her strength and honesty revealed as she takes us through her journey. I have never lived with a chronic illness, and found her insights and discoveries quite fascinating. I had not thought of drawing parallels between my real life and my reading choices. I do know that sometimes the right book simply appears at the right time for me, or that I get different things out of books when I read at different ages. At times a difficult read but always a thought provoking one, I think Reading Through The Night would be a great book discussion selection.
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

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I received an advanced digital copy of this book from the author, Netgalley.com and University of Virgina Press. Thanks to all for the opportunity to read and review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Part memoir, part reading list, Ms. Tompkins takes the reader along on her journey of survival. Struggling with the effects and symptoms of a chronic illness, she finds that she can still read and still enjoy reading. A inspirational story of the beauty of books.

5 out of 5 stars. Excellent book.

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A selection from iphelia.com's Editor's Bookshelf review: Reading Through the Night is so much more than the biography or memoir of a highly-educated woman reading her way through a debilitating illness. It is medicine for intellectual bypass, or what Erick French refers to as intellectualization in Iphelia: Awakening the Gift of Feeling.

Tompkins invites readers to accompany her on perhaps the most intimate journey: the one where she sees herself not just in spite of, but because of reading, an activity she’s relied on for many different reasons.

Reading Through the Night will not appeal to a general audience, but it will delight and create space for those who’ve dedicated their lives to educating themselves, only to be left looking for something beyond what the ivory tower can provide. If you relished comparative lit classes, but understand the characters’ feelings better than your own, this book is for you.

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