SIGNED EDITION
 
We Are What We Read: A Life Within and Without Books (hardcover)
by Vybarr Cregan-Reid 
 
“A wonderful book. I endorse it with all my heart.”- Miriam Margolyes
 
“The boldest, clearest, most beautifully written articulation I have yet read of the life-changing properties of literature and why we disdain and downgrade its study at our peril. We Are What We Read should be a set text for the next Education Secretary and required reading for anyone who doubts the transformative potential of arts and humanities subjects.” -Caroline Sanderson, associate editor, The Bookseller
 
Vybarr Cregan-Reid is an unlikely academic. Someone who knows what it’s like to be written off, who left school with no qualifications, who desperately needed a second chance. He also understands better than anyone the power of literature to change a life.
 
From a turbulent start, through a disastrous education, truancy and petty crime, to a distinguished career as an English professor, We Are What We Read weaves Vybarr’s own unexpected life in books with a spirited history of the war on the humanities, uncovering the profound impact that books have in shaping our reality at a time when their value is under attack from governments around the world.
 
Part memoir, part manifesto, part history, We Are What We Read is not just about how education can place you back on the right side of the tracks. It is also a rallying cry for the importance of literature in a world where the arts are being squeezed out at every level and where book bans in schools and libraries have surged to record highs. It’s about the joys and the transformational power of reading and how our brains are rewired by books, exploring how literature offers a vital means of connection in a fractured world.
 
Reading is not merely an escape – it’s an essential part of who we are.