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Title details for What We Talk About When We Talk About Books by Leah Price - Wait list

What We Talk About When We Talk About Books

by Leah Price
Elisabeth Rodgers
Audiobook
Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
Reports of the death of reading are greatly exaggerated Do you worry that you've lost patience for anything longer than a tweet? If so, you're not alone. Digital-age pundits warn that as our appetite for books dwindles, so too do the virtues in which printed, bound objects once trained us: the willpower to focus on a sustained argument, the curiosity to look beyond the day's news, the willingness to be alone. The shelves of the world's great libraries, though, tell a more complicated story. Examining the wear and tear on the books that they contain, English professor Leah Price finds scant evidence that a golden age of reading ever existed. From the dawn of mass literacy to the invention of the paperback, most readers already skimmed and multitasked. Print-era doctors even forbade the very same silent absorption now recommended as a cure for electronic addictions. The evidence that books are dying proves even scarcer. In encounters with librarians, booksellers and activists who are reinventing old ways of reading, Price offers fresh hope to bibliophiles and literature lovers alike.
Winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award, 2020
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Publisher: Hachette Audio Edition: Unabridged

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781549149382
  • File size: 160858 KB
  • Release date: August 20, 2019
  • Duration: 05:35:07

MP3 audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781549149382
  • File size: 160879 KB
  • Release date: August 20, 2019
  • Duration: 05:38:07
  • Number of parts: 6
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Formats

OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

subjects

Language Arts Literary Criticism Nonfiction

Languages

English

Reports of the death of reading are greatly exaggerated Do you worry that you've lost patience for anything longer than a tweet? If so, you're not alone. Digital-age pundits warn that as our appetite for books dwindles, so too do the virtues in which printed, bound objects once trained us: the willpower to focus on a sustained argument, the curiosity to look beyond the day's news, the willingness to be alone. The shelves of the world's great libraries, though, tell a more complicated story. Examining the wear and tear on the books that they contain, English professor Leah Price finds scant evidence that a golden age of reading ever existed. From the dawn of mass literacy to the invention of the paperback, most readers already skimmed and multitasked. Print-era doctors even forbade the very same silent absorption now recommended as a cure for electronic addictions. The evidence that books are dying proves even scarcer. In encounters with librarians, booksellers and activists who are reinventing old ways of reading, Price offers fresh hope to bibliophiles and literature lovers alike.
Winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award, 2020
Expand title description text
Language Arts Literary Criticism Nonfiction