The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction
- ISBN-10
- 019983038X
- ISBN-13
- 9780199830381
- Category
- Self-Help
- Pages
- 176
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2011-05-26
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Author
- Alan Jacobs
Description
In recent years, cultural commentators have sounded the alarm about the dire state of reading in America. Americans are not reading enough, they say, or reading the right books, in the right way. In this book, Alan Jacobs argues that, contrary to the doomsayers, reading is alive and well in America. There are millions of devoted readers supporting hundreds of enormous bookstores and online booksellers. Oprah's Book Club is hugely influential, and a recent NEA survey reveals an actual uptick in the reading of literary fiction. Jacobs's interactions with his students and the readers of his own books, however, suggest that many readers lack confidence; they wonder whether they are reading well, with proper focus and attentiveness, with due discretion and discernment. Many have absorbed the puritanical message that reading is, first and foremost, good for you--the intellectual equivalent of eating your Brussels sprouts. For such people, indeed for all readers, Jacobs offers some simple, powerful, and much needed advice: read at whim, read what gives you delight, and do so without shame, whether it be Stephen King or the King James Version of the Bible. In contrast to the more methodical approach of Mortimer Adler's classic How to Read a Book (1940), Jacobs offers an insightful, accessible, and playfully irreverent guide for aspiring readers. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of approaching literary fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, and the book explores everything from the invention of silent reading, reading responsively, rereading, and reading on electronic devices. Invitingly written, with equal measures of wit and erudition, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction will appeal to all readers, whether they be novices looking for direction or old hands seeking to recapture the pleasures of reading they first experienced as children.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2011-05-26
- 176 pages
- Ebook
- Oxford University Press
-
- 2011-05-26
- 176 pages
- Paperback
- Oxford University Press, USA
Similar books
-
The Pleasures of Reading: In an Ideological Age
By Robert AlterA distinguished critic rescues literature from the ivory tower and reestablishes reading as a personal source of complex pleasure and insight.
-
Living into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions
By Arthur Boers. . . This book is his personal witness to the practices that develop into a life of wealth, of generous abundance.
-
The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction
By Meghan Cox GurdonFrom a thrilling look at what happens in a toddler’s brain when a grown-up reads a story, to the way shared books are keeping far-flung military families connected; from the imaginative transport of classic novels, to the rejuvenating ...
-
A Theology Of Reading: The Hermeneutics Of Love
By Alan JacobsBakhtin's account of faithful attentiveness demonstrates that Wayne Booth's wise and noble treatment of "books as friends," in his wonderful book The Company We Keep, is not quite adequate to its subject, because the very notion of ...
-
Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind
By Alan JacobsIn Breaking Bread with the Dead, a gifted scholar draws us into close and sympathetic engagement with texts from across the ages, including the work of Anita Desai, Henrik Ibsen, Jean Rhys, Simone Weil, Edith Wharton, Amitav Ghosh, Claude ...
-
Read to Lead: The Simple Habit That Expands Your Influence and Boosts Your Career
By Jeff Brown, Jesse Wisnewski... Irreverent Guide to Biography, History, Journalism, Blogs, and Everything in Between by Thomas C. Foster How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas C. Foster The ...
-
The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time
By David L. UlinReading is a revolutionary act, an act of engagement in a culture that wants us to disengage. In The Lost Art of Reading, David L. Ulin asks a number of timely questions - why is literature important? What does it offer, especially now?
-
The Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in a Troubled Time
By David L. UlinHere is the case for reading as a political act in both public and private gestures, and for the ways it enlarges the world and our frames of reference, all the while keeping us engaged.
-
Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times
By Andrew PiperContending that our experience of reading belies naive generalizations about the future of books, Book Was There is an elegantly argued and thoroughly up-to-date tribute to the endurance of books in our ever-evolving digital world.
-
On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books
By Karen Swallow PriorThis story-saturated engagement with the virtues is pragmatic enough to touch the nitty-gritty of our lives and imaginative enough to inspire.