Sunday, September 13, 2009  Exercising My Rights  A bill of
rights is a formal summary of those rights and liberties
considered essential to a people or group of people. Daniel
Pennac in Better Than Life (1996), his wonderful book about
reading, lists the rights of readers. Pennac's primary concern
is with instilling a love of reading in children, but I think
his list is important to any reader. These are rights I consider
only slightly less important than those guaranteed to me by the
first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States. I
exercise these rights freely, and I will defend them fiercely.
1. The right to not read any book. I have the right to not read
any author’s works, any subgenre, or any particular book that I
find poorly written, offensive, boring, or just not to my
tastes. I don’t read vampire books, scary thrillers, or erotica.
I see my choice as a matter of personal taste, not a reflection
of my intelligence or morality. There are also particular
writers whose books I don’t rea