David L. Ulin

An expansion of the author's Los Angeles Times essay explores the personal and cultural importance of reading in today's increasingly digital age, blending commentary with memoir to explain how the act of reading promotes engagement and mental freedom.

Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time

The Lost Art of Reading

Sarah Sammis

Starts off simply enough — a father who loves to read is concerned that his son isn't enjoying The Great Gatsby. Then it completely falls apart. This is more diatribe / pat on the back than it is about an essay on managing reading in a world of electronic interruptions. The prose is more akin to the excerpts of Fifty Shades of Grey than an essay on reading for fun.

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Maggie Gordon

I have heard countless times from people that they just don't have time to read anymore, or that it's too hard to focus on reading. That there are always more important things than reading. As an academic, that's a bit disturbing to me given 90% of my life is reading. But I also take care to read beyond work because there's so much value in expanding your mind with fiction and things outside your wheelhouse. In any case, Ulin takes on my concerns, discusses the issues people have with reading in the modern era, and makes a series of strong arguments as to why reading is still important in this fast-paced digital age

What I liked about this essay was that Ulin doesn't fall into a binary approach to argumentation. He admits that there have been changes because of society and technology, and he points out both the problematic and beneficial aspects of these shifts. He doesn't argue that e-books are the end of the world, and he does admit that technically people are reading a lot because of the internet. However, he is careful to point out where there are problems in our consumption, and what reading can do for people. Given he is a writer and teaches, his essay is littered with literary examples, generally related back to his history of reading. 

The Lost Art of Reading is a short, but evocative essay on the power and the need for the written word.

The Lost Art of Reading Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time

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