Joshua Mohr, On Reading

"I used to think reading could change the world--that if we looked through different characters' eyes and hearts and souls, we might learn empathy. We might learn to be nicer to one another. But I'm getting older and more 'seasoned' (see: tired, lazy, disillusioned), and now I think of reading/writing mostly as entertainment. It's better than TV because it actively engages your brain--quality calories versus empty calories--and if the writing is good, for a moment, however brief, you connect with the world in an entirely new way. Of course, you come down and go back to being your normal self, but there's that flash, that blinding, ephemeral flash where you embody a character and experience a life that's entirely new."


{Joshua Mohr is the author of the novels Termite Parade, which was an Editors’ Choice on The New York Times Best Seller List, and Some Things that Meant the World to Me, one of O Magazine's Top 10 reads of 2009. He has an MFA from the University of San Francisco and has published numerous short stories and essays in publications such as The New York Times Book Review, 7×7, The Bay Guardian, ZYZZYVA, The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, among many others. He lives in San Francisco and teaches fiction writing. Please visit him here.}