|
Also Recommended
|
|
|
John Mullan
£7.99
|
|
|
|
|
Jonathan Bate
£7.99
|
|
|
|
|
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction
Alan Jacobs
224 pages
|
210x140mm
978-0-19-974749-8
|
Hardback
|
21 July 2011
|
|
|
|
|
- A free-ranging, affectionate and wise guide to reading
Is reading under threat? No, says Alan Jacobs—but people do need help iand encouragemnt to enjoy it to the full.
Jacobs's experience as a lecturer and many-time author suggests 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.
He 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.Readership: Scholars of literary studies or popular culture; enthusiastic readers
|
|
|
Alan Jacobs, Clyde S. Kilby Chair Professor of English, Wheaton College Alan Jacobs is a professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois. His books include The Narnian, a biography of C.S. Lewis, Original Sin: A Cultural History, and a Theology of Reading. His literary and cultural criticism has appeared in the Boston Globe, The American Scholar, and the Oxford American.
|
|
|
"He writes with panache...it is excellent" - The Tablet "fascinating study" - Writing Magazine "Delightful yet discombobulating" - The Wall Street Journal "what could be nicer to read than a book about how nice reading is?" - Steven Poole, The Guardian "lively volume...prepare to be engrossed." - Times Higher Education Supplement "A vigorous and friendly exhortation to get back into the kind of reading that made you a reader in the first place." - Library Journal
|
|
|
Yes, we can
Whim
All in your head
Aspirations
Upstream
Responsiveness
Kindling
Slowly, slowly
True confessions
Lost
Abbot Hugh's advice
The triumphant return of Adler and Van Doren
Plastic attention
Getting schooled
Quiet, please
One more, with feeling
Judge, Jury, Executioner
In solitude, for company
Serendip
How it all started
|
|
|
|
The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
|
|
