“Her reputation for reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic.”
Have you noticed that we readers get a reputation? It seems to happen particularly among my friends who are light readers. I am always being asked, “Have you read the new” this or that, recently released or reviewed on NPR or made into a movie. Frequently I haven’t and they seem disappointed. I try to remind them that there are millions of books out there, awaiting my attention, and only so much free time. When I have, I like to say it with a nonchalant air, as if to say, “Of course! Hasn’t everyone? Why haven’t you?”