Relearning to Read: Adventures in Not-Knowing invites you to turn the way you read upside down and see what falls out. Drawing on an approach to reading developed over more than a decade of interactions with stories and book-lovers around the world through the author's hit blog ayearofreadingtheworld.com, the book puts not-knowing centre stage and plays with what examining the gaps in our understanding and the assumptions we use to plug them can teach us about ourselves and our world.

Many books about books celebrate the cosiness and consolation of reading; Relearning to Read does the opposite. Built on the realisation that to read widely we must make friends with incomprehension – because no one can be an expert in all the world's literatures – it explores how getting comfortable with discomfort and owning our limitations can take us further and deepen our appreciation of the world's complexity and richness.



'Ann Morgan is a reader's reader, and in Relearning to Read she uses her erudition and powers of insight to hone a lively discussion on how to read books from around our increasingly fractured world – and how to live within the chaos.'



'Ann Morgan's quietly profound book shows us how, paradoxically, by acknowledging what we don't know, we can engage with what we read more deeply. Relearning to Read is a guidebook to a brave new world of literary pleasures'.



'What matters most to her, laudably, is creating the conditions in which her readers will "view reading as a more active, connected, and radical pastime."'



'An insightful, reflective and companionable essay collection that penetrates the cultural biases that define our reading. It looks at how our assumptions re what is normal, good or canonical shape our appreciation of eg humour, gender, politics. I came to this at the right time in my reading life. Importantly the tone is open and collaborative rather than finger wagging. Makes me realise however culturally contingent art is, but not hopelessly so. If anything this is what makes the art worth engaging with.'



'Provocative, vigorous, elegant and compelling – this beautiful book dares us to stop making our minds up, and start to open them instead. It will stimulate so much curiosity, compassion and ambition in its readers. It needs to be read as widely as possible.'



'Relearning to Read is a wonderfully enlightening look at how and why we read. Expansive and open-hearted, it is a genuinely original and transformative book.'