In the essay "Good Readers and Good Writers" by Vladimir Nabokov he writes a list of ten characteristics that his college class made that a good reader and/ or a good writer should have. He then says to pick four from this list that make a good writer or reader. This part of the essay really grabbed my attention because it is like saying that almost anyone could be a good reader or a good writer if they really set their minds to it. The four characteristics that his college students picked were: (1) having a good imagination, (2) having a memory, (3) having a dictionary and (4) having at least some artistic sense. I also would have picked these four characteristics out of his list of ten. This part of the essay was most interesting to me also because it was really the only part of the essay that actually discussed what things were needed to be a good reader. He says "I use the word reader very loosely..." (Nabokov, page 2) He means that anyone could be a reader, it doesn't matter what you read. He is trying to say that he doesn't just classify people that read all the time as readers. He thinks "reader" is a very general statement.
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