Book
The Pleasures Of Reading in an Age of Distraction
by Alan Jacobs
- Published
- 2011
- Genre
- Nonfiction
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Pages
- 162
- URL
- https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9859899-the-pleasures-of-reading-in-an-age-of-distraction?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_50
Reading measures
- Suggested reading age
- ages 17–18
- Ambleside year
- Year 12 onwards · ages 17–20
An Ambleside year is a year of the Ambleside Online programme, not a reader's age. Year 0 is its first year, and a book used over several years shows the span. The ages beside it are that band offered two grades up and none down, which is how we offer a band; they are a placement, not a reading measure.
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.
ISBN
- ISBN-13
- 9780199747498
- ISBN-10
- 0199747490
Tags
Disabilities-LearningEducationLiteracyNonfictionReading