"Read to Live!" - fascinating encounters with famous female readers. Did you know that Marilyn Monroe was a passionate reader and one of her favorite books was "Ulysses" by James Joyce? That the dropout Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock invented the poetry reading in 1750 when he recited his odes to a group of young women and received kisses in return? That Jane Austen only took women seriously who loved novels? Or that 150 years ago, Eugenie Marlitt, a dismissed reader, became the world's first bestselling author? These and a wealth of other events come to life in an entertainingly written panorama by Stefan Bollmann, which spans from Klopstock's time to the present and discusses current phenomena like fanfiction and "Shades of Grey." At the same time, he tells a surprisingly different story of reading, its power, and its magic. Read.