Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corrigan (Born July 30, 1955) is an American journalist, author and literary critic. She writes for the "Book World" section of The Washington Post, and is a book critic on the NPR radio program Fresh Air. In 2005, she published a literary memoir, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books.
Corrigan holds a B.A. from Fordham University as well as an M.A. and Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania and is Critic in Residence and a lecturer in English at Georgetown University. Her specialist subjects include 19th-century British literature, women's literature (with a special focus on autobiographies), popular culture, detective fiction, contemporary American literature, and Anglo-Irish literature. Corrigan is a member of the advisory panel of The American Heritage Dictionary and an Advisor to the National Endowment of the Arts "Big Read" project.
(from Wikipedia)
“I think, consciously or not, what we readers do each time we open a book is to set off a search for authenticity. We want to get closer to the heart of things, and sometimes even a few good sentences contained in an otherwise unexceptional book can crystallize vague feelings, fleeting physical sensations, or, sometimes, profound epiphanies." pg. xvi”
“ According to a Wall Street Journal article some 59 percent of Americans don t own a single book. Not a cookbook or even the Bible. ”
“It's not that I don't like people. It's just that when I'm in the company of others - even my nearest and dearest - there always comes a moment when I'd rather be reading a book.”