A respected essayist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker and The Atlantic discusses the pleasure, often forgotten in the modern day, of reading something for no purpose whatsoever in his latest collection of writings.

This book is an attempt to offer a justification for the teaching of literature in schools and universities, and is intended as a contribution to the philosophy of literary education. The issues which Dr Gribble discusses could all be bracketed under the general heading of the relationship between literature and life. The book is written for those readers and teachers of literature who step back from their immediate engagement with a novel, play, or poem and ask such questions as 'What knowledge or understanding, if any, have I gained from the work? Of what significance is the author's intention to my view of the work? What moral value does the work possess? What kinds of feelings or emotions did I experience? How did my identification with certain characters influence my response? In what way did the moral significance or emotional impact depend upon the quality of the writing? What part does critical analysis play in determining the answers to any of these questions?'. Dr Gribble's treatment of these issues is neither technical nor abstract but advanced on the basis of particular examples drawn from a wide range of literature. Written in a lively and lucid style the book will interest all serious readers of literature, although it is primarily directed at those who teach literature in schools, colleges, and universities and who are necessarily concerned with the educative value of reading and discussing literature.

Writing about Learning and Teaching in Higher Education offers detailed guidance to scholars at all stages-experienced and new academics, graduate students, and undergraduates-regarding how to write about learning and teaching in higher education. It evokes established practices, recommends new ones, and challenges readers to expand notions of scholarship by describing reasons for publishing across a range of genres, from the traditional empirical research article to modes such as stories and social media that are newly recognized in scholarly arenas. The book provides practical guidance for scholars in writing each genre-and in getting them published. To illustrate how choices about writing play out in practice, we share throughout the book our own experiences as well as reflections from a range of scholars, including both highly experienced, widely published experts and newcomers to writing about learning and teaching in higher education. The diversity of voices we include is intended to complement the variety of genres we discuss, enacting as well as arguing for an embrace of multiplicity in writing about learning and teaching in higher education.