Reading is fundamental (for some).

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Briefly Noted - The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction - Brief article - Book review

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In The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (Oxford), Wheaton College English professor Alan Jacobs offers a bracingly contrarian take on the idea that modern technologies and markets are harming deep literacy.

Are our techno-screens pulling us away from contemplative reading? Jacobs argues, based on his own experience, that the Kindle in particular "generates an inertia that makes it significantly easier to keep reading than to do anything else," either physically (easier than holding a big book open) or intellectually (easier than jumping forward or back, or checking how far to the...