---
product_id: 8511797
title: "The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction"
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---

# The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction

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## Description

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.

Review: A Natural Worshiper of Serendipity and Whim - Alan Jacobs, who readers of my blog (nearearthobject-dot-net) may know from previous references to his excellent blog TextPatterns, has recently released a wonderful book about reading that I simply can't recommend highly enough. The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction is just the sort of pithy, sympathetic tract that our times demand -- it encourages bibliographic exploration, celebrates chance literary encounters, while offering sincere understanding for the would-be "well-read" among us who fear missing out on an overly massive menu of "great works." Those chance literary encounters are the subject of this passage, which I found so delightful and even moving, that I thought I'd share it here. "The cultivation of serendipity is an option for anyone, but for people living in conditions of prosperity and security and informational richness it is something vital. To practice "accidental sagacity" is to recognize that I don't really know where I am going, even if I like to think I do, or think Google does; that if I know what I am looking for, I do not therefore know what I need; that I am not master of my destiny and captain of my fate; that it is probably a very good thing that I am not master of my destiny and captain of my fate. An accidental sagacity may be the form of wisdom I most need, but am least likely to find without eager pursuit. Moreover, serendipity is the near relation of Whim; each stands against the Plan. Plan once appealed to me, but I have grown to be a natural worshiper of Serendipity and Whim; I can try to serve other gods, but my heart is never in it. I truly think I would rather read an indifferent book on a lark than a fine one according to schedule and plan. And why not? After all, once upon a time we chose none of our reading: it all came to us unbidden, unanticipated, unknown, and from the hand of someone who loved us." As the daddy of a toddler who absolutely loves to be read to, this strikes a chord. Jacobs reminds us that just as we trusted our parents to bring the world of words to us when we could not yet even speak sentences, so we can, as adults, allow the myriad chaotic forces around us to drop texts in our path, and accept them as they come, rather than worry over the time not spent on things we feel we are "supposed to" read. Jacobs, incidentally, also confirms my feelings about the benefits of dedicated ereaders such as the Kindle. Particularly at this time in our technological lives when so many other gizmos promise to inundate us with all manner of simultaneous stimuli, Jacobs recognizes that this gizmo can help to cleanse the palate and provide oasis. ". . . people who know what it is like to be lost in a book, who value that experience, but who have misplaced it . . . They're the ones who need help, and want it, and are prepared to receive it. I had become one of those people myself, or was well on my way to it, when I was rescued through the novelty of reading on a Kindle. My hyper-attentive habits were alienating me further and further from the much older and (one would have thought) more firmly established habits of deep attention. I was rapidly becoming a victim of my own mind's plasticity, until a new technology helped me to remember how to do something that for years had been instinctive, unconscious, natural. I don't know whether an adult who has never practiced deep attention--who has never seriously read for information or for understanding, or even for delight--can learn how. But I'm confident that anyone who has ever had this facility can recover it: they just have to want that recovery enough to make sacrifices for it, something they will only do if they can vividly recall what that experience was like." So beyond Jacobs' excellent prose and insight, perhaps one of the things that recommends this book to me so strongly is validation. I can live with that. See more by me at nearearthobject-dot-net
Review: A pleasurably distracting read - Alan Jacobs is an academic who teaches literature, so is aware that to some degree in this book he is preaching to the converted. The group he aims to interest is people who like to read but who find themselves distracted by all the time-consuming and often mind-numbing diversions that modern technology provides. If you have ever sat at lunch talking to someone who is twiddling on their tablet or texting on their mobile, you will know exactly what the distractions are and how annoying (and tempting) they can be. Jacobs distinguishes two kinds of reading: deep attention and hyper attention. The former is where we maintain a sustained focus on a book and is most suited to situations where we are looking to intensify our understanding or to lose ourselves in enjoyment. Hyper attention is characterised by skimming and looking at the structure of a book, and is more suited to reading where the primary goal is to glean information. The two are not mutually exclusive: often we use hyper reading in order to select things for deep attention, and Jacobs argues that our education system needs to teach both modes in order to improve our skills in deciding which one to apply to any given text. Being able to decide what to read and how you will read it gives us a greater measure of control over our lives. Jacobs warns against being seduced by lists of worthy books to read or an established canon of literature. There is an extraordinary diversity of books out there, so we need to become self-confident navigators rather than steerage class passengers being fed pap by the `experts'. Jacobs's principle is to `read at Whim' (with a capital W), which is not just random reading, but making informed choices along the way. The book provides some tips on how to improve our deep attention when reading, and how to balance this with hyper attention in order to choose our reading more thoughtfully. Jacobs is rightly scornful of the concept of `multi-tasking', which is generally an excuse for not doing anything properly. Jacobs is a proponent of highlighting, underlining and annotating books, though he appreciates that this might cause problems if you borrow your books from a public library (still, he doesn't hold library books to be sacrosanct). E-readers allow extensive annotations, highlighting and bookmarking, and even sharing of your highlights with others, but Jacobs notes that the system is not yet a match for annotations on paper. His own experience with an e-reader is that it has increased the amount of deep attention reading he has been doing. He puts this down to the fact that accessing distractions on his e-reader is clumsy and takes too much time. I have found the same thing since buying an e-reader, becoming more regularly absorbed in books for much longer periods, though I cannot put my finger on the reasons for this. It is counter-intuitive to what we expect from modern technology, but a pleasing result. Many people re-read books, sometimes on a regular basis or sometimes after an interval of many years. This can be a useful learning experience, to see how our reactions change over time and to see how our judgement of a book can vary depending on our circumstances and accumulated experiences. As I get older I have appreciated books that left me cold in my youth, and others that stirred my imagination now seem shallow and uninspiring. Others, of course, retain their magic and can open up ever new perspectives each time they are read. In the closing section of his book, Jacobs describes the act of reading to a child as an act of love, and a pleasurable experience with books when young is likely to build a love of reading in the longer term. But reading is not an innate skill like language and speech. The part of the brain used for reading is quite different to that used for other language functions. It is certainly a rewarding skill to learn, and Jacobs has written a short but appealing book that will hopefully reignite people's interest in reading more wisely and more often.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #240,652 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #131 in General Books & Reading #193 in Literature #20,093 in Self-Help (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 293 Reviews |

## Images

![The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81bFrNrmcQL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Natural Worshiper of Serendipity and Whim
*by P***P on June 27, 2011*

Alan Jacobs, who readers of my blog (nearearthobject-dot-net) may know from previous references to his excellent blog TextPatterns, has recently released a wonderful book about reading that I simply can't recommend highly enough. The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction is just the sort of pithy, sympathetic tract that our times demand -- it encourages bibliographic exploration, celebrates chance literary encounters, while offering sincere understanding for the would-be "well-read" among us who fear missing out on an overly massive menu of "great works." Those chance literary encounters are the subject of this passage, which I found so delightful and even moving, that I thought I'd share it here. "The cultivation of serendipity is an option for anyone, but for people living in conditions of prosperity and security and informational richness it is something vital. To practice "accidental sagacity" is to recognize that I don't really know where I am going, even if I like to think I do, or think Google does; that if I know what I am looking for, I do not therefore know what I need; that I am not master of my destiny and captain of my fate; that it is probably a very good thing that I am not master of my destiny and captain of my fate. An accidental sagacity may be the form of wisdom I most need, but am least likely to find without eager pursuit. Moreover, serendipity is the near relation of Whim; each stands against the Plan. Plan once appealed to me, but I have grown to be a natural worshiper of Serendipity and Whim; I can try to serve other gods, but my heart is never in it. I truly think I would rather read an indifferent book on a lark than a fine one according to schedule and plan. And why not? After all, once upon a time we chose none of our reading: it all came to us unbidden, unanticipated, unknown, and from the hand of someone who loved us." As the daddy of a toddler who absolutely loves to be read to, this strikes a chord. Jacobs reminds us that just as we trusted our parents to bring the world of words to us when we could not yet even speak sentences, so we can, as adults, allow the myriad chaotic forces around us to drop texts in our path, and accept them as they come, rather than worry over the time not spent on things we feel we are "supposed to" read. Jacobs, incidentally, also confirms my feelings about the benefits of dedicated ereaders such as the Kindle. Particularly at this time in our technological lives when so many other gizmos promise to inundate us with all manner of simultaneous stimuli, Jacobs recognizes that this gizmo can help to cleanse the palate and provide oasis. ". . . people who know what it is like to be lost in a book, who value that experience, but who have misplaced it . . . They're the ones who need help, and want it, and are prepared to receive it. I had become one of those people myself, or was well on my way to it, when I was rescued through the novelty of reading on a Kindle. My hyper-attentive habits were alienating me further and further from the much older and (one would have thought) more firmly established habits of deep attention. I was rapidly becoming a victim of my own mind's plasticity, until a new technology helped me to remember how to do something that for years had been instinctive, unconscious, natural. I don't know whether an adult who has never practiced deep attention--who has never seriously read for information or for understanding, or even for delight--can learn how. But I'm confident that anyone who has ever had this facility can recover it: they just have to want that recovery enough to make sacrifices for it, something they will only do if they can vividly recall what that experience was like." So beyond Jacobs' excellent prose and insight, perhaps one of the things that recommends this book to me so strongly is validation. I can live with that. See more by me at nearearthobject-dot-net

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A pleasurably distracting read
*by A***N on October 26, 2012*

Alan Jacobs is an academic who teaches literature, so is aware that to some degree in this book he is preaching to the converted. The group he aims to interest is people who like to read but who find themselves distracted by all the time-consuming and often mind-numbing diversions that modern technology provides. If you have ever sat at lunch talking to someone who is twiddling on their tablet or texting on their mobile, you will know exactly what the distractions are and how annoying (and tempting) they can be. Jacobs distinguishes two kinds of reading: deep attention and hyper attention. The former is where we maintain a sustained focus on a book and is most suited to situations where we are looking to intensify our understanding or to lose ourselves in enjoyment. Hyper attention is characterised by skimming and looking at the structure of a book, and is more suited to reading where the primary goal is to glean information. The two are not mutually exclusive: often we use hyper reading in order to select things for deep attention, and Jacobs argues that our education system needs to teach both modes in order to improve our skills in deciding which one to apply to any given text. Being able to decide what to read and how you will read it gives us a greater measure of control over our lives. Jacobs warns against being seduced by lists of worthy books to read or an established canon of literature. There is an extraordinary diversity of books out there, so we need to become self-confident navigators rather than steerage class passengers being fed pap by the `experts'. Jacobs's principle is to `read at Whim' (with a capital W), which is not just random reading, but making informed choices along the way. The book provides some tips on how to improve our deep attention when reading, and how to balance this with hyper attention in order to choose our reading more thoughtfully. Jacobs is rightly scornful of the concept of `multi-tasking', which is generally an excuse for not doing anything properly. Jacobs is a proponent of highlighting, underlining and annotating books, though he appreciates that this might cause problems if you borrow your books from a public library (still, he doesn't hold library books to be sacrosanct). E-readers allow extensive annotations, highlighting and bookmarking, and even sharing of your highlights with others, but Jacobs notes that the system is not yet a match for annotations on paper. His own experience with an e-reader is that it has increased the amount of deep attention reading he has been doing. He puts this down to the fact that accessing distractions on his e-reader is clumsy and takes too much time. I have found the same thing since buying an e-reader, becoming more regularly absorbed in books for much longer periods, though I cannot put my finger on the reasons for this. It is counter-intuitive to what we expect from modern technology, but a pleasing result. Many people re-read books, sometimes on a regular basis or sometimes after an interval of many years. This can be a useful learning experience, to see how our reactions change over time and to see how our judgement of a book can vary depending on our circumstances and accumulated experiences. As I get older I have appreciated books that left me cold in my youth, and others that stirred my imagination now seem shallow and uninspiring. Others, of course, retain their magic and can open up ever new perspectives each time they are read. In the closing section of his book, Jacobs describes the act of reading to a child as an act of love, and a pleasurable experience with books when young is likely to build a love of reading in the longer term. But reading is not an innate skill like language and speech. The part of the brain used for reading is quite different to that used for other language functions. It is certainly a rewarding skill to learn, and Jacobs has written a short but appealing book that will hopefully reignite people's interest in reading more wisely and more often.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Delightful Celebration of Reading
*by S***S on November 27, 2013*

I serendipitously stumbled across this book as I was shopping on Amazon's Kindle Store. I thought to myself, "A book about why reading is awesome? Sounds like fun!" So I fell prey to that diabolical temptation, the "Buy with One Click" button. That was yesterday. Despite the fact that I have three books open right now, I thought, "I'll read the first couple of pages." And here I am today, and the book is done. It's short and exceedingly readable, but so wonderful in a lot of ways. As a 40-something person, I'm at that place in life where I think about all the books I've yet to read, and that if I'm lucky I'm halfway through my lifespan. Still, it has occurred to me that I'd best get a whole lot more serious about reading books that are important for me to read! So I've been planning out which books I need to tackle. In waltzes Prof. Jacobs and urgently begs me to forget about any such madness. It's a rare and amazing thing that a Professor of English Literature would give me this crucial advice: Read at Whim! Read at Whim! He argues that if reading becomes a duty or a thing to get over with, it becomes soul-killing and empty. I keep unconsciously relating "important books" with my educational career: Hurry up! Get these things read now, before someone finds out what a hack you are! You need to be able to tell people you've read these books, or you'll be an intellectual laughingstock! Jacobs' playful (and I think more than half-serious) suggestion: LIE! Find enough information on these "important" books from the internet that you can evince some basic level of familiarity with them, throw in a couple of knowing comments to your friends....and get back to spending the bulk of your leisure time reading books in which you can truly delight. Get lost in them, experiencing the matchless pleasure that comes with it! This is because in order to truly benefit from any book, you have to take it on its own terms and truly love it for its own sake. By no means should this be taken to construe that Prof. Jacobs advocates reading nothing but brain-candy novels (though he staunchly defends the worth of such reading!). Remember: he's a literature professor, after all. He is driving at the point that you can get the full benefit of a book only when you are ready to receive what it has for you. If you're not ready to receive Tolstoy right now, revel in J.K. Rowling! (though Rowling isn't my cup of tea, personally). As you learn to delight in reading, you will find yourself ready to receive more of the "important" books, and in not in the manner of flogging yourself until you march through a torturous tome. Instead, you will increasingly be able to identify the truly delightful elements of a book that you have never seen before. What seems to lie at the heart of all this is to develop one's capacity for "deep attention." This is a way of reading that is rare indeed...all the more endangered by a world driven to insane levels of A.D.D. by digital, social media, and musical distractions. Deep reading is the sort practiced by medieval monks: reading slowly, deliberately...meditating and ruminating on the wise counsel brought to you by excellent books. It takes discipline over time to develop the silence and focused attention that such excellent works require. Obviously, it doesn't take great mental discipline to read a Tom Clancy novel (now THERE'S an author who is right up my alley)...but the good news is that any form of enjoyable long-form reading can help you develop the focused attention over time that will make bring you to the place where you ARE ready to receive the riches in a truly "great" piece of literature. Jacobs discusses so many intriguing topics in this little book, including the radical idea that our current educational system does NOT provide fertile opportunities to develop this essential "deep attention." Instead it is structured to foster "hyper attention," which is quick scanning to gather information. Ironically, even literature classes do little to develop a deep love of books, because they are time-limited and require exams, essays and papers. In other words, they cannot help but to turn reading into an information-compiling exercise. Now, Jacobs acknowledges the validity of "hyper attention" (quick reading for information-- and indeed many pursuits require just that skill. However, it is impossible to experience the true joys of reading until we discipline our minds to be silent, block out interruptions, slow down, and soak in excellent books. The good news is, those different modes of thinking need not be mutually exclusive! I got a great deal out of this little book. I cannot help but believe that we would benefit as a society I rich ways by Jacobs' exhortations to silence, solitude, meditation, focus. We needn't become Luddites, throwing way our iPads and smart phones. However, truly great ideas come out of minds that can focus attention and think deeply!

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