Zadie Smith: Pathological Reader

In Oprah, the author writes that her consumption of books may be absurd, but that, at least, summer is a good time to have pathological reading habits.

I would like to say in my defense that I don’t really get the appeal of YOLO. I live many times over. Hypothetical, subterranean lives that run beneath the relative tedium of my own and have the power to occasionally penetrate or even derail it. I find it hard to name the one book that was so damn delightful it changed my life. The truth is, they have all changed my life, every single one of them—even the ones I hated.

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Sarah Edwards lives in New York. You can find her virtually (at her blog, scedwards.tumblr.com or twitter, @eddy_sarah) or at the pie shop she works at in Brooklyn, where she would definitely like to serve you a piece of pie.

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The Rumpus publishes original fiction, poetry, literary humor writing, comics, essays, book reviews, and interviews with authors and artists of all kinds. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers our readers may already know and love. We want to bring new perspectives into the conversation that will make us all look deeper.

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