The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction

To the reader whose delight in books has diminished, Jacobs (English, Wheaton Coll.; The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis) provides a combined love letter to books and a pep talk for the act of reading, one that habitual readers will also enjoy. Jacobs shies away from directives and exhorts on behalf of whim—read what you are moved to read, not what you feel you ought to read. He eschews literary snobbery, too, consciously distancing himself from works such as Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren's How To Read a Book, which Jacobs finds too prescriptive. He examines the distractions present in daily life, including the Internet, which may erode the ability to pay deep attention. But this lost ground may be regained; Jacobs rediscovered his own ability to read by using a Kindle.