Traditionally, The Love Of Reading Has Been

If We Want To Write, It Makes Sense To Read—and To Read Like A Writer. If We Wanted To Grow Roses, We Would Want To Visit Rose Gardens And Try To See Them The Way That A Rose Gardener Would.

To Be Truthful, Some Writers Stop You Dead In Your Tracks By Making You See Your Own Work In The Most Unflattering Light. Each Of Us Will Meet A Different Harbinger Of Personal Failure, Some Innocent Genius Chosen By Us For Reasons Having To Do With What We See As Our Own Inadequacies. The Only Remedy To This I Have Found Is To Read A Writer Whose Work Is Entirely Different From Another, Though Not Necessarily More Like Your Own—a Difference That Will Remind You Of How Many Rooms There Are In The House Of Art.

We Never Believe We're Beautiful, No Matter How Many Times We Hear It. We Never Believe It Until Someone Says It In The Right Way.

With This Recitation Of Paraphernalia And Detritus, O'brien Manages To Encapsulate The Experience Of An Army And Of A Particular War, Of A Mined And Booby-trapped Landscape, Of Cold Nights And Hot Days, Of Soaking Monsoons And Rice Paddies, And Of The Possibility Of Being Shot, Like Ted Lavender, Suddenly And Out Of Nowhere: Not Only In The Middle Of A Sentence But In The Midst Of A Subordinate Clause.

I Can No More Reread My Own Books Than I Can Watch Old Home Movies Or Look At Snapshots Of Myself As A Child. I Wind Up Sitting On The Floor, Paralyzed By Grief And Nostalgia.