Well-Read Lives

Sicherman's meticulous, elegantly written study is a major contribution to the history of the book and thus to a richer version of American social and cultural history. A rewarding exploration of the purposes reading served in the lives of prominent Progressive-era women, it also moves toward recovering the role of print in the lives of less-privileged individuals. We do not have another book like this.--Joan Shelley Rubin, University of Rochester|""Through extraordinary archival research and careful reading of diaries, letters, autobiographies, and other writings, Sicherman provides a thoughtful, well-documented, and original account of how young women's 'deep reading' in fiction, biographies, and histories enabled them to think their way into different, quite unprecedented lives. Elegantly written and a delight to read.""--Janice A. Radway, author of Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature|""Barbara Sicherman's gripping, moving history of women's voracious reading is a manifesto for the importance of books in helping people--not only women--dare to dream beyond their current constraints.""--Linda Gordon, New York University|""Barbara Sicherman has gifted us with a treasure! This is an extraordinary book that explains, quite simply, how we got to be us: women who read across all our differences; beyond all barriers. Women like Jane Addams, Rose Cohen, Ida B. Wells who seek to understand deeply, learn profoundly, build community in mean and difficult times. This is a timely, marvelous book for this moment of change, danger, hope.""--Blanche Wiesen Cook, John Jay College and Graduate Center, The City University of New York