A Study of Reading Habits Summary & Analysis
by Philip Larkin

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"A Study of Reading Habits" was published in Philip Larkin's popular third collection, The Whitsun Weddings (1964). The poem's speaker describes how reading once offered him an escape and seemed to promise a different kind of life (e.g., getting back at the school bullies!). Now that he's older, books no longer work their magic on him—and, even more painfully, he's come to see himself in their lesser characters. The disillusioned speaker thus concludes that "Books are a load of crap."

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