The Pleasures Of Reading In An Age Of Distraction

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The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction

Author : Alan Jacobs
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019983167X
Total Pages : 172 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (998 download)

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Book Synopsis The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by : Alan Jacobs

Download or read book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction written by Alan Jacobs and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-26 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

The Pleasures of Reading

Author : Robert Alter
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 9780393314991
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (149 download)

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Book Synopsis The Pleasures of Reading by : Robert Alter

Download or read book The Pleasures of Reading written by Robert Alter and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1996 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A distinguished critic rescues literature from the ivory tower and reestablishes reading as a personal source of complex pleasure and insight.

Living into Focus

Author : Arthur Boers
Publisher : Baker Books
ISBN 13 : 1441236295
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (412 download)

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Book Synopsis Living into Focus by : Arthur Boers

Download or read book Living into Focus written by Arthur Boers and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In today's high-speed culture, there's a prevailing sense that we are busier than ever before and that the pace of life is too rushed. Most of us can relate to the feeling of having too much to do and not enough time for the people and things we value most. We feel fragmented, overwhelmed by busyness and the tyranny of gadgets. Veteran pastor and teacher Arthur Boers offers a critical look at the isolating effects of modern life that have eroded the centralizing, focusing activities that people used to do together. He suggests ways to make our lives healthier and more rewarding by presenting specific individual and communal practices that help us focus on what really matters. These practices--such as shared meals, gardening, hospitality, walking, prayer, and reading aloud--bring our lives into focus and build community. The book includes questions for discernment and application and a foreword by Eugene H. Peterson.

The Enchanted Hour

Author : Meghan Cox Gurdon
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062562835
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis The Enchanted Hour by : Meghan Cox Gurdon

Download or read book The Enchanted Hour written by Meghan Cox Gurdon and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Wall Street Journal writer’s conversation-changing look at how reading aloud makes adults and children smarter, happier, healthier, more successful and more closely attached, even as technology pulls in the other direction. A miraculous alchemy occurs when one person reads to another, transforming the simple stuff of a book, a voice, and a bit of time into complex and powerful fuel for the heart, brain, and imagination. Grounded in the latest neuroscience and behavioral research, and drawing widely from literature, The Enchanted Hour explains the dazzling cognitive and social-emotional benefits that await children, whatever their class, nationality or family background. But it’s not just about bedtime stories for little kids: Reading aloud consoles, uplifts and invigorates at every age, deepening the intellectual lives and emotional well-being of teenagers and adults, too. Meghan Cox Gurdon argues that this ancient practice is a fast-working antidote to the fractured attention spans, atomized families and unfulfilling ephemera of the tech era, helping to replenish what our devices are leaching away. For everyone, reading aloud engages the mind in complex narratives; for children, it’s an irreplaceable gift that builds vocabulary, fosters imagination, and kindles a lifelong appreciation of language, stories and pictures. Bringing together the latest scientific research, practical tips, and reading recommendations, The Enchanted Hour will both charm and galvanize, inspiring readers to share this invaluable, life-altering tradition with the people they love most.

Book Was There

Author : Andrew Piper
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226922898
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (269 download)

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Book Synopsis Book Was There by : Andrew Piper

Download or read book Book Was There written by Andrew Piper and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Piper grew up liking books and loving computers. While occasionally burying his nose in books, he was going to computer camp, programming his Radio Shack TRS-80, and playing Pong. His eventual love of reading made him a historian of the book and a connoisseur of print, but as a card-carrying member of the first digital generation—and the father of two digital natives—he understands that we live in electronic times. Book Was There is Piper’s surprising and always entertaining essay on reading in an e-reader world. Much ink has been spilled lamenting or championing the decline of printed books, but Piper shows that the rich history of reading itself offers unexpected clues to what lies in store for books, print or digital. From medieval manuscript books to today’s playable media and interactive urban fictions, Piper explores the manifold ways that physical media have shaped how we read, while also observing his own children as they face the struggles and triumphs of learning to read. In doing so, he uncovers the intimate connections we develop with our reading materials—how we hold them, look at them, share them, play with them, and even where we read them—and shows how reading is interwoven with our experiences in life. Piper reveals that reading’s many identities, past and present, on page and on screen, are the key to helping us understand the kind of reading we care about and how new technologies will—and will not—change old habits. Contending 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.

Slow Reading in a Hurried Age

Author : David Mikics
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674728327
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (747 download)

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Book Synopsis Slow Reading in a Hurried Age by : David Mikics

Download or read book Slow Reading in a Hurried Age written by David Mikics and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wrapped in the glow of the computer or phone screen, we cruise websites; we skim and skip. We glance for a brief moment at whatever catches our eye and then move on. Slow Reading in a Hurried Age reminds us of another mode of reading--the kind that requires our full attention and that has as its goal not the mere gathering of information but the deeper understanding that only good books can offer. Slow Reading in a Hurried Age is a practical guide for anyone who yearns for a more meaningful and satisfying reading experience, and who wants to sharpen reading skills and improve concentration. David Mikics, a noted literary scholar, demonstrates exactly how the tried-and-true methods of slow reading can provide a more immersive, fulfilling experience. He begins with fourteen preliminary rules for slow reading and shows us how to apply them. The rules are followed by excursions into key genres, including short stories, novels, poems, plays, and essays. Reading, Mikics says, should not be drudgery, and not mere escape either, but a way to live life at a higher pitch. A good book is a pathway to finding ourselves, by getting lost in the words and works of others.

Read to Lead

Author : Jeff Brown
Publisher : Baker Books
ISBN 13 : 1493430254
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (934 download)

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Book Synopsis Read to Lead by : Jeff Brown

Download or read book Read to Lead written by Jeff Brown and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's the common habit shared by many successful people throughout history. It's responsible for unlocking limitless creativity and influence. It's known to reduce stress, improve decision-making skills, and make you a better leader. What is it? Reading. And it's the single best thing you can do to improve yourself professionally. Reading more and better books creates opportunities for you to learn new skills, rise above your competition, and build a successful career. In Read to Lead you'll learn - why you need to read like your career depends on it - the five science-backed reasons reading will help you build your career - how to absorb a book into your bloodstream - a technique that can double (or triple!) your reading speed - tips on creating a lifetime reading habit - and more If you want to lead a more satisfied life, have more intelligent conversations, and broaden your mind, you need to read to lead!

A Theology Of Reading

Author : Alan Jacobs
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429971141
Total Pages : 197 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis A Theology Of Reading by : Alan Jacobs

Download or read book A Theology Of Reading written by Alan Jacobs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If the whole of the Christian life is to be governed by the "law of love"—the twofold love of God and one's neighbor—what might it mean to read lovingly? That is the question that drives this unique book. Through theological reflection interspersed with readings of literary texts (Shakespeare and Cervantes, Nabokov and Nicholson Baker, George Eliot and W. H. Auden and Dickens), Jacobs pursues an elusive quarry: the charitable reader.

Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me

Author : Ian Morgan Cron
Publisher : HarperChristian + ORM
ISBN 13 : 0849949297
Total Pages : 275 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (499 download)

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Book Synopsis Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me by : Ian Morgan Cron

Download or read book Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me written by Ian Morgan Cron and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2011-06-06 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A touching memoir of life with an alcoholic father who secretly works with the CIA, a dark pilgrimage through the valley of depression and addiction, and finding a faith to redeem and a strength to forgive. "This is a record of my life as I remember it—but more importantly, as I felt it." At the age of sixteen, Ian Morgan Cron was told by his mother that his father, a motion picture executive, worked with the CIA in Europe. This astonishing revelation, coupled with his father's dark struggle with alcoholism, upended the world of a teenager struggling to become a man. Born into a family of privilege and power, Ian's life is populated with colorful people and stories as his father takes the family on a wild roller-coaster ride through wealth and poverty and back again. Decades later, as he faced his own personal demons, Ian realized that the only way to find peace was to voyage back through a painful childhood marked by extremes—privilege and poverty, violence and tenderness, truth and deceit—that he’d spent years trying to escape. A fast-paced, unique memoir about the power of forgiveness from the bestselling author of The Road Back to You Details his father’s struggle with alcohol and Cron’s own journey from addiction to twenty-three years of sobriety Encouragement to see God’s redemptive power through life’s struggles In this surprisingly funny and forgiving memoir, Ian reminds us that no matter how different the pieces may be, in the end we are all cut from the same cloth, stitched by faith into an exquisite quilt of grace.

The Lost Art of Reading

Author : David L. Ulin
Publisher : Sasquatch Books
ISBN 13 : 157061721X
Total Pages : 89 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (76 download)

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Book Synopsis The Lost Art of Reading by : David L. Ulin

Download or read book The Lost Art of Reading written by David L. Ulin and published by Sasquatch Books. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reading 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? Blending commentary with memoir, Ulin addresses the importance of the simple act of reading in an increasingly digital culture. Reading a book, flipping through hard pages, or shuffling them on screen - it doesn't matter. The key is the act of reading, and it's seriousness and depth. Ulin emphasizes the importance of reflection and pause allowed by stopping to read a book, and the accompanying focus required to let the mind run free in a world that is not one's own. Are we willing to risk our collective interest in contemplation, nuanced thinking, and empathy? Far from preaching to the choir, The Lost Art of Reading is a call to arms, or rather, to pages.

How to Think

Author : Alan Jacobs
Publisher : Crown Currency
ISBN 13 : 0451499603
Total Pages : 162 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (514 download)

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Book Synopsis How to Think by : Alan Jacobs

Download or read book How to Think written by Alan Jacobs and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Absolutely splendid . . . essential for understanding why there is so much bad thinking in political life right now." —David Brooks, New York Times How to Think is a contrarian treatise on why we’re not as good at thinking as we assume—but how recovering this lost art can rescue our inner lives from the chaos of modern life. As a celebrated cultural critic and a writer for national publications like The Atlantic and Harper’s, Alan Jacobs has spent his adult life belonging to communities that often clash in America’s culture wars. And in his years of confronting the big issues that divide us—political, social, religious—Jacobs has learned that many of our fiercest disputes occur not because we’re doomed to be divided, but because the people involved simply aren’t thinking. Most of us don’t want to think. Thinking is trouble. Thinking can force us out of familiar, comforting habits, and it can complicate our relationships with like-minded friends. Finally, thinking is slow, and that’s a problem when our habits of consuming information (mostly online) leave us lost in the spin cycle of social media, partisan bickering, and confirmation bias. In this smart, endlessly entertaining book, Jacobs diagnoses the many forces that act on us to prevent thinking—forces that have only worsened in the age of Twitter, “alternative facts,” and information overload—and he also dispels the many myths we hold about what it means to think well. (For example: It’s impossible to “think for yourself.”) Drawing on sources as far-flung as novelist Marilynne Robinson, basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain, British philosopher John Stuart Mill, and Christian theologian C.S. Lewis, Jacobs digs into the nuts and bolts of the cognitive process, offering hope that each of us can reclaim our mental lives from the impediments that plague us all. Because if we can learn to think together, maybe we can learn to live together, too.

Breaking Bread with the Dead

Author : Alan Jacobs
Publisher : Profile Books
ISBN 13 : 1782835849
Total Pages : 154 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (828 download)

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Book Synopsis Breaking Bread with the Dead by : Alan Jacobs

Download or read book Breaking Bread with the Dead written by Alan Jacobs and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2020-09-10 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Spectator Book of the Year It's fashionable to think of the writers of the past as irredeemably tarnished by prejudice. Aristotle despised women. John Milton, the great champion of free speech, wouldn't have granted it to Catholics. Edith Wharton's imaginative sympathies stopped short of her Jewish characters. But what if it is only through the works of such individuals that we can achieve a necessary perspective on the troubles of the present? Join literary scholar Alan Jacobs for a truly nourishing feast of learning. Discover what Homer can teach us about force, what Machiavelli has to say about reading and what Charlotte Brontë reveals about race. Not all the guests are people you might want to invite into your home, but they all bring something precious to the table. In Breaking Bread with the Dead, an omnivorous reader draws us into close and sympathetic engagement with minds across the ages, from Horace to Donna Haraway.

The Year of Our Lord 1943

Author : Alan Jacobs
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190864672
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis The Year of Our Lord 1943 by : Alan Jacobs

Download or read book The Year of Our Lord 1943 written by Alan Jacobs and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-02 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear that the Allies would win the Second World War. Around the same time, it also became increasingly clear to many Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic that the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. A war won by technological superiority merely laid the groundwork for a post-war society governed by technocrats. These Christian intellectuals-Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others-sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world. In this book, Alan Jacobs explores the poems, novels, essays, reviews, and lectures of these five central figures, in which they presented, with great imaginative energy and force, pictures of the very different paths now set before the Western democracies. Working mostly separately and in ignorance of one another's ideas, the five developed a strikingly consistent argument that the only means by which democratic societies could be prepared for their world-wide economic and political dominance was through a renewal of education that was grounded in a Christian understanding of the power and limitations of human beings. The Year of Our Lord 1943 is the first book to weave together the ideas of these five intellectuals and shows why, in a time of unprecedented total war, they all thought it vital to restore Christianity to a leading role in the renewal of the Western democracies.

Wayfaring

Author : Alan Jacobs
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0802865682
Total Pages : 169 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (28 download)

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Book Synopsis Wayfaring by : Alan Jacobs

Download or read book Wayfaring written by Alan Jacobs and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2010-06-28 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With Wayfaring, Jacobs continues his tradition of exploring Christian theology and experience by way of the essay-- Jacobs muses on the usefulness and dangers of blogging, the art of dictionary making, the world of Harry Potter, and an appreciation of trees."--Publisher's description.

The Narnian

Author : Alan Jacobs
Publisher : Zondervan
ISBN 13 : 0060872691
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (68 download)

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Book Synopsis The Narnian by : Alan Jacobs

Download or read book The Narnian written by Alan Jacobs and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2006-08 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grade level: 9, 10, 11, 12, e, i, s.

On Reading Well

Author : Karen Swallow Prior
Publisher : Brazos Press
ISBN 13 : 1493415468
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (934 download)

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Book Synopsis On Reading Well by : Karen Swallow Prior

Download or read book On Reading Well written by Karen Swallow Prior and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ★ Publishers Weekly starred review A Best Book of 2018 in Religion, Publishers Weekly Reading great literature well has the power to cultivate virtue, says acclaimed author Karen Swallow Prior. In this book, she takes readers on a guided tour through works of great literature both ancient and modern, exploring twelve virtues that philosophers and theologians throughout history have identified as most essential for good character and the good life. Covering authors from Henry Fielding to Cormac McCarthy, Jane Austen to George Saunders, and Flannery O'Connor to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Prior explores some of the most compelling universal themes found in the pages of classic books, helping readers learn to love life, literature, and God through their encounters with great writing. The book includes end-of-chapter reflection questions geared toward book club discussions, original artwork throughout, and a foreword by Leland Ryken. The hardcover edition was named a Best Book of 2018 in Religion by Publishers Weekly. "[A] lively treatise on building character through books.'"--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Lost in Thought

Author : Zena Hitz
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691229198
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Lost in Thought by : Zena Hitz

Download or read book Lost in Thought written by Zena Hitz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An invitation to readers from every walk of life to rediscover the impractical splendors of a life of learning In an overloaded, superficial, technological world, in which almost everything and everybody is judged by its usefulness, where can we turn for escape, lasting pleasure, contemplation, or connection to others? While many forms of leisure meet these needs, Zena Hitz writes, few experiences are so fulfilling as the inner life, whether that of a bookworm, an amateur astronomer, a birdwatcher, or someone who takes a deep interest in one of countless other subjects. Drawing on inspiring examples, from Socrates and Augustine to Malcolm X and Elena Ferrante, and from films to Hitz's own experiences as someone who walked away from elite university life in search of greater fulfillment, Lost in Thought is a passionate and timely reminder that a rich life is a life rich in thought. Today, when even the humanities are often defended only for their economic or political usefulness, Hitz says our intellectual lives are valuable not despite but because of their practical uselessness. And while anyone can have an intellectual life, she encourages academics in particular to get back in touch with the desire to learn for its own sake, and calls on universities to return to the person-to-person transmission of the habits of mind and heart that bring out the best in us. Reminding us of who we once were and who we might become, Lost in Thought is a moving account of why renewing our inner lives is fundamental to preserving our humanity.