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.

In this delightful collection, forty acclaimed writers explain what first made them interested in literature, what inspired them to read, and what makes them continue to do so. First published in 1992 in hardback only, original contributors include Margaret Atwood, J. G. Ballard, Melvyn Bragg, A. S. Byatt, Catherine Cookson, Carol Ann Duffy, Germaine Greer, Alan Hollinghurst, Doris Lessing, Candia McWilliam, Edna O'Brien, Ruth Rendell, Tom Stoppard, Sue Townsend, and Jeanette Winterson. The new edition will include essays from ten new writers.

The Pleasure of Reading reflects on the joys of owning and reading books. It looks at the situations that lead people to become keen readers and the ways in which parents and teachers can encourage children’s love of stories. It is critical of traditional methods of studying literature that deter many children from regarding reading as a pleasurable activity. The book also looks at the interests and passions that motivate novelists and the wide range of subjects on which they choose to write, the kind of stories they tell, the themes that they explore and the skill with which they handle their plots, characters and settings. Particular attention is given to the novelist’s role as a protester against injustice, persecution and the abuse of power.

"Wendy Lesser's extraordinary alertness, intelligence, and curiosity have made her one of America's most significant cultural critics," writes Stephen Greenblatt. In Why I Read, Lesser draws on a lifetime of pleasure reading and decades of editing one of the most distinguished literary magazines in the country, The Threepenny Review, to describe her love of literature. As Lesser writes in her prologue, "Reading can result in boredom or transcendence, rage or enthusiasm, depression or hilarity, empathy or contempt, depending on who you are and what the book is and how your life is shaping up at the moment you encounter it." Here the reader will discover a definition of literature that is as broad as it is broad-minded. In addition to novels and stories, Lesser explores plays, poems, and essays along with mysteries, science fiction, and memoirs. As she examines these works from such perspectives as "Character and Plot," "Novelty," "Grandeur and Intimacy," and "Authority," Why I Read sparks an overwhelming desire to put aside quotidian tasks in favor of reading. Lesser's passion for this pursuit resonates on every page, whether she is discussing the book as a physical object or a particular work's influence. "Reading literature is a way of reaching back to something bigger and older and different," she writes. "It can give you the feeling that you belong to the past as well as the present, and it can help you realize that your present will someday be someone else's past. This may be disheartening, but it can also be strangely consoling at times." A book in the spirit of E. M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel and Elizabeth Hardwick's A View of My Own, Why I Read is iconoclastic, conversational, and full of insight. It will delight those who are already avid readers as well as neophytes in search of sheer literary fun.

Examines the social forces that have shaped reading, discusses the nature of reading skills, and suggests connections between reading and dreaming and hypnotic trance

A distinguished critic rescues literature from the ivory tower and reestablishes reading as a personal source of complex pleasure and insight.

In Reading for Pleasure, Kenny Pieper has gathered a range of tried-and-tested strategies to get kids reading, and enjoying it. We hear too often that kids don't read any more: Kenny thinks it should be every teacher's mission to prove this isn't true. In a squeezed curriculum it can be tempting to accept pupils' lack of reading and make excuses that there is not enough time to give to the 'luxury' of personal reading. Teachers do this at our peril. Reading is the essential building block of further literacy development as well as a skill, hobby and habit that we can take with us forever. Kenny Pieper takes the act of reading for granted, as many - but sadly not all - adults do. You're reading this right now. However, this isn't the case for everyone. Kenny teaches kids whose lives are terrifying obstacle courses of reading-related problems. They know they struggle with reading so they try to avoid reading at all costs. They leave school, not merely unaffected by this strange reading thing, but saddled with a great deal of emotional baggage about being an outsider, even more entrenched in a belief that reading is for others more intelligent than them. Then there are the children who can read perfectly well, but chose not to, unconvinced of the importance of reading in their lives. What difference does it make to them? We have to answer that question in school. We have a duty to put an end to illiteracy and aliteracy. Kids need reading role models and, as a teacher, that role model is you. You may be the only adult who that reluctant reader will ever see reading. Teachers are critical in giving all children the gift of being able to read well and to value reading. Topics covered include: the author's personal reading journey, how reading enabled him to become the first person in his family to go to university and convinced him that fostering a love of reading is his moral duty as an educator, illiteracy and aliteracy, reluctant readers, book reviews, prioritising personal reading by devoting ten minutes each lesson to it, habitual reading, the reading environment, interest inventories, technology, e-readers, Accelerated Reader programmes, recommended reading, building a class library, bookmarks, book tweets, book speed-dating, libraries, librarians, literacy and class inequality, parental involvement, podcasting, reading records, reading dialogue journals, the rights of the reader, reading aloud, silent reading and literacy and gender, amongst others. The benefits we can all reap when kids become confident readers who read for pleasure are obvious. Discover strategies which will: get kids talking about books, get them thinking about books, get them reading books, encourage independent reading, develop literacy skills and establish a classroom culture where reading is expected and celebrated. Suitable for primary and secondary teachers, leaders and SENCOs, or just anyone with an interest in or responsibility for getting kids to read.