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The Pleasures Of Reading In An Age Of Distraction (2011)

by Alan Jacobs(Favorite Author)

3.9 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0199747490 (ISBN13: 9780199747498)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

review 1: At last, someone with relevant ideas on restoring the pleasures of reading. Both Whim and Serendip are concepts that resonated with me. Jacobs also provides insight on how to recapture the patient, focused reading that suffers from the distractions of modern life. He even presents a more realistic assessment of the necessary goals for reading education in the schools, making the case that people who cannot live without books never really depended on schools for the skills to read slowly and patiently.I shall have to add this book to my personal library. It warrants re-reading.
review 2: An excellent book. It builds, in my mind, on what Lewis argues for in Experiment in Criticism. Jacobs proposes that we live by the rule of Whim. In other words, we should re... moread what we like, as a general rule, rather than what we're "supposed to" read (and that according to whichever of the various canonizers of such things to whom we might happen to bow). It's an incredibly liberating philosophy as I myself did fall into Clifton Fadiman's clutches at a young age, and poured over his Lifetime Reading Plan like I was looking into my (sadly) determined reading future. less

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