The Reading Life with Parul Sehgal, Book Critic at The New York Times
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The Reading Life with Parul Sehgal, Book Critic at The New York Times
“I wish I could observe life like Maggie Nelson,” I said to my manager.
“You can,” he replied. “I think reading literature makes one much more attentive. I go from ‘writing op-eds about who is good and who is bad’ to ‘writing vignettes about what's amusing, unusual, or thematically resonant’ in my head. It's like, ‘What genre do I want my internal ... See more
“You can,” he replied. “I think reading literature makes one much more attentive. I go from ‘writing op-eds about who is good and who is bad’ to ‘writing vignettes about what's amusing, unusual, or thematically resonant’ in my head. It's like, ‘What genre do I want my internal ... See more
Jasmine Sun • 🌻 Audience of One
What will be the fate of reading? I don’t mean the left-to-right movement of the eyes as we take in information, but the age-old practice of addressing the world by way of this inward faculty of imagination. I mean reading as a filtering of the complexities of the real through artistic narrative, reflection, and orchestration of verbal imagery.
Sven Birkerts • The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age
What journalist W. David Marx calls “savvy consumers,” those desiring cool and convention-breaking pop culture, are still consumers. When the names of products or celebrities appear in a book, they prick us like a targeted ad, jumping from the page as digestible morsels. Reference novels work because of globalized digitization; the danger in them i
... See moreGreta Rainbow • IYKYK: When Novels Speak a Language Only Part of the Internet Gets | The Walrus
Until I listened to a book on tape, I didn’t realize how much I depend on the freedom to slow down, speed up, or stop altogether while reading. With certain writers, I might pause significantly a dozen times over the course of a few paragraphs: once for comprehension, several times more to savor a phrase, and one or more times because something dri
... See moreSven Birkerts • The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age
Reading is an unambiguously good thing in a life that’s been filled with mixed blessings.