The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time by David L. Ulin

Jan 12, 2013 Emma rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, books-about-books, auckland-library

Recently a GR friend commented how surprised they were by the low number of books people were setting as their target for the 2013 GR Reading Challenge.

Did you know the average number of challenge books at time of writing is 59? Less than 2 weeks into the year 60 people have already completed their challenge (!).

On my friend's thread some of us were expressing bewilderment. I was completely perplexed, because I think of GR as a social media network for readers. If you weren't a reader, why woul...more

like 31 likes · see review

Dec 18, 2010 Jasmine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: american

Okay recently I’ve been working a lot and going to shows and haven’t been sleeping, but I have a lot of things to say about this book that are interesting and thought provoking so I’m going to do my best.

“Far more common is a sense of skittering across the surface,a feeling of drift, both mental and emotional, in which time and context become unmoored. This is the nature of my distraction: the world is always too close at hand”

I kind of hate the internet, there is too much going on and I can’t...more Okay recently I’ve been working a lot and going to shows and haven’t been sleeping, but I have a lot of things to say about this book that are interesting and thought provoking so I’m going to do my best.

“Far more common is a sense of skittering across the surface,a feeling of drift, both mental and emotional, in which time and context become unmoored. This is the nature of my distraction: the world is always too close at hand”

I kind of hate the internet, there is too much going on and I can’t keep up and there are too many people I don’t care about in the least. Let me be more specific. I am a member of 3 social networking cites: myspace, facebook, and goodreads. I periodically focus on various of these websites, but I almost never use more than one at once. The problem is that I have to filter so much information that there isn’t actually any time to actually focus on what you are looking at on the website. Yeah there is all that shit I talk about with regards to horizontal and vertical processing, and yes I’m a really solid horizontal processor. At one point Ulin says that the internet makes us better at the kind of processing the internet requires, it doesn’t make us objectively smarter. What it makes us better at is looking at 20 streams of information, picking one and disregarding all the others. God, Connor told me this great story once. He was offered a trial subscription to the new York times, and he ended up canceling it early because it was too stressful to have a pile of unread new York times newspapers that he didn’t know when he would be able to get to. The internet, at least for me, is like that all the time. I open a group page and there are hundreds and hundreds of new comments. I am considering dropping out of a few groups because they consider things like hundreds of threads and thousands of members a selling point. Here is the thing, I have been using the same myspace forum for 6 years about. I have made a total of maybe 10 friends because I’m not one to spread myself to thin. Meeting new people expanding my horizons… well I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning. There is a book called the paradox of choice the book designates two kinds of people. First, there are the people who have to look at every option and find it impossible to choose for fear of choosing wrong, then there is a group of people who find a good enough option and stop looking. I am in the latter camp. So all this information and choice presented to me on the internet I don’t need it. At my height of news reading (back when I was studying politics for two minutes) I got updates from the NYT, BBCnews, and al jeezera (hi CIA!). I didn’t look for more news, now I read the article google chooses when you search for news (are you aware of this function hat collapses all the articles and presents you with a representative one? I love that function). Basically, when I’m online I learn nothing. I take the first thing I find and then I don’t bother to look for anything else. When I read (for example when I started looking into health and food consumption) I’ll read multiple books. What I’m saying in all this incoherrentness is that there is too much on the internet and I don’t feel informed when I use it I feel overwhelmed. The internet isn’t about becoming more informed it’s about being able to know everything and not actually processing anything (Okay I know this is an exaggeration, but really, not to mention the weird things people post on facebook and act like they are “true”).

Okay my other major problem with the internet? People. Basically on the internet there is an inherent lack of choice. On my facebook I am friends with several members of my father’s family I haven’t seen since before I could form coherent memories. I am friends with several people in my mother’s family who I actively avoid and hate. Now I see the internet as restricting choice. I know I could deny these people, but the fact of the matter is that I can’t deny them without making them angry and then they will invade my real life in addition to my virtual life. So where in the past it made sense I never talked to my grandmother because she was in a different state, now she sends me commands in facebook messages (okay that only happened once). My mother’s family consider me THE “ROLE MODEL”. I don’t want this job, or anything to do with it, but the fact is that now that all the children in the family can see my facebook and me pouring a shot of 151 for ethan at a party 2 years ago (which my mother always refers to as “that picture of you drinking straight out of the bottle”) now I am failing at my role. I no longer have the right to refuse that role because they can all see me, everyone can see me, where the fuck is my privacy, I wasn’t even the one who put the damn picture online, that was done by someone else who will be offended if I untag myself. The internet has stolen my life and won’t give it back.

Ulin talks a lot about memory and identity and the internet. That’s what we are talking about here. Identity use to be memory and he says memory is what you forget. Now memory is stored online. Now this is less so for people who don’t have digital cameras and post their lives online, but if other people do that for you, not only is your identity still being posted online, but you aren’t even getting a say in that identity. The internet has taken the private concept of self definition and made it public.

Now Ulin’s book doesn’t say it’s about the internet, but trust me everything that I’m talking about is intimately related to this book, but let’s get to the real point. What makes books better other than everything. First, books are private (other than those idiots who try to have a book group with you on the subway, fuck off jerk faces). Second, books allow you to come as you are, they don’t judge and they don’t impose they simply allow you to enter the story. Third, books allow you to be someone else.

I saw a comment on an amazon review that said “the only bad thing about this book was having to hold it up”. That’s flat out wrong. That is the best thing about a book, a book is an object that separates you from the rest of the world, whether fiction or non, a book allows you to introspect to see yourself and to appreciate your place in the world. And best books care out time, commitment, they let you feel and think and interact without confronting everything in the world all at once. It isn’t about a tweet any longer, it’s about those extended moments of emotional attachment to the pages.

This book made me want to change the way I live my life. I mean I’m not a highly technologized person. I have an offbrand phone that doesn’t do much other than make calls and text, which I commonly don’t even bring with me when I leave my house. Not that long ago I didn’t have a computer for 6 months. But when I have technology it is too available and I use it in too destructive away. I want to force myself to slow down to force myself to engage. Instead of existing on the internet in a mass of people trying to prove simply that they exist at all, I would like to live in a world of discourse online or off. And discourse is exactly what books are about.

"A novel is a conversation between a reader and a writer." — John Green

(less)

like 19 likes · see review

Feb 14, 2013 James rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-and-reread, books, lit-theory

Several years ago I read a wonderful book, Distraction, by the philosopher and author Damon Young. His book describes the success of several great thinkers and writers in living a thoughtful life filled with freedom from distraction. One of the hallmarks of the lives he described was reading. It is this act, which David Ulin describes as "an act of resistance in a landscape of distraction, a matter of engagement in a society that seems to want nothing more than for us to disengage"(p 150).
This o...more Several years ago I read a wonderful book, Distraction, by the philosopher and author Damon Young. His book describes the success of several great thinkers and writers in living a thoughtful life filled with freedom from distraction. One of the hallmarks of the lives he described was reading. It is this act, which David Ulin describes as "an act of resistance in a landscape of distraction, a matter of engagement in a society that seems to want nothing more than for us to disengage"(p 150).
This observation is near the end of Ulin's essay on why books matter, The Lost Art of Reading. Some of us have not lost the art, but may need a reminder of its importance. For reading is more than entertainment, although it often is entertaining; it may also be invigorating, meditative, or even a spiritual life enhancing experience. Above all, as Ulin argues, it is a way to get in touch with ourselves in this instant as we connect with the thoughts of authors that may have lived millenniums ago.
The essay focuses on reading a through a variety of metaphors. Reading is "a journey of discovery"(p 13). The journey is different for each individual but one example highlighted by the author resonated with me. It was the immersion of Frank Conroy in books when he was a boy. His journey began with what seems a chaotic passage through book and authors both great and small, heavy and light, but it was a start and a wonderful way for Conroy to get the lay of the land. To enter into a world that would provide him with a place that was apart from the distraction of society became a foundation on which he could build his own life as a writer.
David Ulin remembers his own library of books as a " virtual city, a litropolis, in which the further you were from the axis, the less essential a story you had to tell"(p 17). It was this view of books as a city that he translated later into remembering cities by their books and populating his reading life with a vision of the world based on his own tastes and aspirations. This is something that each of us as readers may do in our own life. The essay takes you through encounters with readers like Ulin's own son, who has to read and reluctantly annotate Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, with the encouragement of his father. But he also discusses writers like Anne Fadiman who is among the greatest connoisseurs of reading and writing that I have encountered. And we are regaled with a story about reading David Foster Wallace, a contemporary writer of revolutionary tomes. There is even a discussion about reading on a Kindle which is not necessarily a bad thing except there are a lot of worthwhile books that are not available on a Kindle, so the book is safe for the moment.
As a reader I found this essay encouraging and invigorating. It is a reminder of what I love about reading, what I would love to reread, and where I may go to continue my own journey. Just as I enjoy the freedom from distraction that reading can bring, I wonder at the infinite worlds that are opened when we take time to get in touch with ourselves in the pages of a book. (less)

like 1 like · see review

Jan 08, 2012 Claudia rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-about-books

Ooh, I hate books like this: Nuggets of good ideas lie buried under swathes of pure idiocy.

Premise: Modern technology offers so many exciting distractions I now find it hard to concentrate long enough to read a book properly. Sadly, the author then generalizes this to talk about how everybody has this problem.

Well, no, we don't. I don't, for starters. My husband doesn't. Yes, lots of people do, but so what? It's like reading articles in the NYTimes, about how "everybody" is going to that hot new...more Ooh, I hate books like this: Nuggets of good ideas lie buried under swathes of pure idiocy.

Premise: Modern technology offers so many exciting distractions I now find it hard to concentrate long enough to read a book properly. Sadly, the author then generalizes this to talk about how everybody has this problem.

Well, no, we don't. I don't, for starters. My husband doesn't. Yes, lots of people do, but so what? It's like reading articles in the NYTimes, about how "everybody" is going to that hot new restaurant, or wearing that new designer. No, they're not.

This leads to nonsense, like portentous discussions of the death of narrative. Yawn. Again? Or other newsflashes, like this one, wait for it: Teenagers are easily distracted. Shocking, no? They're probably listening to that dreadful "fill-in-today's-outrageous" music, on their transistor radios/Walkmen/iPods. Oh, let me clutch my pearls.

In fairness, Ulin is perhaps more concerned about his own inability to concentrate, but I sincerely think that's his problem. Years ago I saw a lecture in which a wannabe professor was lamenting how she couldn't get any work done at her office, because there were so many distractions, but working at home was no better, because her family also distracted her. Afterwards, my husband commented that she seemed like the sort of person who couldn't get anything done if you locked her alone in a cell, chained to a typewriter. Ulin's complaints sounded a lot like hers.

There's also some serious quoted silliness, like this bit from Judith Shulevitz, in something called The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time. Apparently she writes about the way social networks and similar technologies "suspend us within 'mobile time,' which can be made to flow any way we want."

Note to self: Avoid Shulevitz. Still, I shouldn't complain; I can't wait to make that "mobile time" flow differently and re-animate my dead cat.

But then, annoyingly, just as I was about to give up in disgust, Ulin came up with something genuinely fun. In a description of his son's travails in reading The Great Gatsby for school, Ulin mentions a Facebook page the kid finds: "I Attend Jay Gatsby's Parties." It sounds great, a place where kids exchange comments on the book (some snarky, some silly, some smart) as well as strategies for dealing with oblivious teachers and their predictable questions. Plus, some folks really get creative, putting up cartoons about the story and even a short "video" re-creation of Daisy's car crash.

These are people who seem to have found ways to read, enjoy reading, and integrate that with their use of social networks. Huh. Who'da thunk it?(less)

like 1 like · see review

Apr 11, 2011 Sarah Brennan-Green rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ulin writes longingly and lovingly about the near meditative power and allure of the fully immersed experience of reading. Yet his writing style is so scattered and digressive that I could not become immersed in the book. The last 50+ pages are the strength of the book. His question, "Is reading still reading if you do it on a screen?" seemed disingenuous. Is reading still reading if you listen to a book?

like 4 likes · see review

Mar 20, 2013 Ringling Library added it Recommends it for: aspiring authors

You’re reading this, so, what’s so lost about the art of reading?

Is this just another in the recent spate of books decrying what total connectedness has done to the quality of our lives? It is that, but it’s not just about the devolution in our relationships, nor the recent increase in our distractibility. Ulin’s book is about the damage to our ability to connect with others via deep, immersive reading.

Ulin comes to the topic with his own history of deep reading. He didn’t just consume books, r...more You’re reading this, so, what’s so lost about the art of reading?

Is this just another in the recent spate of books decrying what total connectedness has done to the quality of our lives? It is that, but it’s not just about the devolution in our relationships, nor the recent increase in our distractibility. Ulin’s book is about the damage to our ability to connect with others via deep, immersive reading.

Ulin comes to the topic with his own history of deep reading. He didn’t just consume books, rather they consumed him. With a catholic taste, he swam through a world of fiction—reading as a way of life. According to Ulin, books enlarge us by giving us experiences not our own. Through reading, Ulin built his world of real & imaginary places, people, & events. Authors long dead or still alive communicated their knowledge of feelings. As deep readers, we recreate the author’s world inside our minds. The push/pull between author and reader is how literature works. Reading good writing can collapse the distances between inhabitants of disparate nations, time periods, or emotional predispositions. Ulin describes it thusly: The reader integrates the book with his own experience so, “…the reader becomes the book.” Good writing collapses time, but reading web-page trivia is like reading a data dump that’s always about the present.

To really listen to an author’s outpouring requires a scenario for listening, i.e. deep, silent reading. Also required is time to reflect on what was read. Our overpowering, constant, digital-telecommunication interconnectedness, with its accompanying background noise of constant distraction, is increasingly thwarting those requirements. Many can no longer find the necessary quiet. They are unable to relax enough to concentrate their minds. Perhaps because technology is changing our brains??

Our world rewards & encourages a “the faster, the more connected—the better” kind of thinking. Books are in direct opposition to that idea. With the rise of hypertext & web-site links, many in our society seem to have lost the ability to carry an argument to its logical conclusion, pursue a line of thought, or tolerate a conflicting point of view. Many even seem wary of expertise—denying the necessity for considered action and deep knowledge. According to Ulin, the subsequent breakdown in sequential thought processes has nearly brought us to a tipping point—a collective breakdown in which our common narrative has become hopelessly frayed.

Though only almost-pocket-sized small, this short essay raises large issues. Ulin essentially asks: Can democracy survive in a country where citizens’ care is concentrated on the trivia of the present to the exclusion of most everything else? Heck, forget about democracy. What of our humanity? If we survive, what type of people will we be, once we’ve abandoned interest in history, sequential reasoning, and depth of feeling? If deep reading is lost, perhaps the next thing we will lose will be– us.(less)

like · see review

Jan 08, 2013 Naomi King rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, educational-theory-practice

The questions Ulin asks remain pertinent about the role of reading, though the lamentation for a common discourse fails to recognize just how restrictive and exclusionary that discourse was, eliminating a great many wonderful voices, cultures, and experiences. The common discourse that Ulin laments is, of course, the Western Civ common core, as codified in the late Nineteenth Century and refined in the early Twentieth. Yes, we have much work to do to create common space out of our and with our d...more

like · see review

Apr 20, 2012 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: essays, from-library, non-fiction

This book was a random impulse selection at the library. I know, I've been trying not to check out anything but graphic novels as I already have too much to read at home, but this tiny volume was hardly intimidating, and it felt familiar, as if I'd read about it somewhere and intended to read it, so home with me it went.

It's clear that this book is deeply personal to the author. Framed around an interaction with his son, repeatedly referencing books that were clearly touchstones in his life (man...more This book was a random impulse selection at the library. I know, I've been trying not to check out anything but graphic novels as I already have too much to read at home, but this tiny volume was hardly intimidating, and it felt familiar, as if I'd read about it somewhere and intended to read it, so home with me it went.

It's clear that this book is deeply personal to the author. Framed around an interaction with his son, repeatedly referencing books that were clearly touchstones in his life (many of which I'd never heard of before), his subject matter is still somehow universal and easily relatable -- at least to devoted readers like myself. Well, at least, I guess, to myself. Some conversations with other devoted readers sparked by the reading of this book made it clear that not all felt the same. I guess I should feel lucky that I found myself on such a similar wavelength to the author.

The section of the book I found most interesting was when Ulin was writing about the problem of reading -- of fully immersing oneself in a book -- in this distracted age of Facebook and texting and instant communication. As I read, I was deeply struck by the contrast of my experience reading this book with reading The President just a few short weeks ago. After such a long period of mostly reading books in short bursts -- two to three pages at a time, while the majority of my reading was in shorter form -- magazines, internet articles, Facebook statuses... By the time I had that entire afternoon to devote to The President, I'd fallen entirely out of the habit of sustained, immersive reading. And that frustrating experience closely mirrored Ulin's descriptions in this section. But in the following weeks, I'd spent so much more time reading books -- I must have retrained my brain, because that afternoon in the park when I read most of this book, it was suddenly obvious how much easier it was to just fall into a book. It seemed a testament to the elasticity of the brain and of experience. And a hopeful sign that this empathic experience that is at the heart of reading novels, biographies, essays, need not be completely lost to this digital age. It just takes a little practice. (less)

like · see review

Mar 14, 2012 Bquinn rated it 3 of 5 stars

I bought this book along with two other hardcovers: the Jonathan Lethem essay collection, The Ecstasy of Influence, the new novel by Peter Orner, Love and Shame and Love. I caught sight of this small book on the way out of the bookstore. I took a quick page-through and saw mention of David Shields and Reality Hunger, which lined up with the Lethem book a bit, so it felt synchronicitic and right and I bought it. The subtitle was also compelling: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time. I started it...more

like · see review

Feb 11, 2012 Heather rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: words-art-language

The way I read this book was strangely indicative of its content. I began, actually fearful that I would be indeed too distracted to read, especially a non-fiction work, which I rarely read these days. I tried two or three times to start this book, and it just sat on my bedside table, staring at me, making me feel guilty, as if I'd let down the entire philosophy I hold dear: reading, the quietness of it, the thoughtfulness and isolation it requires. And it sat there, ironically, on top of Gettin...more The way I read this book was strangely indicative of its content. I began, actually fearful that I would be indeed too distracted to read, especially a non-fiction work, which I rarely read these days. I tried two or three times to start this book, and it just sat on my bedside table, staring at me, making me feel guilty, as if I'd let down the entire philosophy I hold dear: reading, the quietness of it, the thoughtfulness and isolation it requires. And it sat there, ironically, on top of Getting Things Done, which I also was not reading.

Weeks went by. I finally finished War and Peace. I dove headlong into The Help. And then, I needed a breather, or a spacer, and I couldn't figure out what to read to get it.

I'd just wrote in a card to a friend, saying I wanted to read a lot of books and fast, to counter balance the time I'd spent with War and Peace. But after The Help, I realized once again that I have never been able to read "a lot and fast" because I become so engaged with each book that I can't up and move to another immediately upon finishing. I like to let it marinate in my head, while I'm reading it, after I've finished it. I become very protective of my reading experience, sometimes deliberately not reading other people's reviews of it for a while, planning how long I should wait to see the movie, so I that I don't erase the feelings the book left me with. When I'm in this space between books, I want something that will take me in, but with a different part of myself, so I can still hold onto that previous book for a while longer.

I had figured out (with huge relief) that my fear of being too distracted to read any more was only a symptom of trying to read War and Peace for three months while having a sip of whiskey (which it turns out, puts me to sleep), because I had this fantasy about reading it at winter, maybe even with a fire going, in the coziness of our first new home together, and with a drink in my hand to go with my imaginary leather wing-backed chair in my invisible English gentleman's cigar-infused library. I enjoyed W&P, but it was also hard, because of the way I read it, in snippets too small, and because I was not an English gentleman with a secluded library to retire to and nothing else to do with my long evenings. Turns out I had no problem reading The Help with other things happening in the background, and so I turned back to The Lost Art of Reading, tuned out, and became drawn into this book.

This morning, I woke up and read next to my husband while his cold kept him asleep. And I finished this lovely little book, which is typeset beautifully, and felt that "liquid honey" feeling he describes. I had no idea what time it was or how long I read for, and still haven't so much as picked up my iPhone. I actually reached over for my sticky flags because ideas just kept flying into my brain as I read. I realized as I finished that, all this time I've had "Books" listed as my religion on faceboook, what I really meant, and the reason I put it there to begin with, is that my "religion" is not so much about books, but the quiet and focus that comes from reading them, the meditation, if you will. Today I will change my religion to Reading.
(less)

like 1 like · see review

Jan 08, 2012 Megan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-criticism, non-fiction

A good chunk of my vague New Year's resolutions have to do with refocusing on processes that I think are important to engage in. Real reading is one such process. Not just internet blog skimming, but actual reading. I took stock of the books I had actually finished in 2011 and was ashamed to discover what I had suspected: my first full year as a bookseller, and I read the fewest number of books of any year of my adult life.

So this is one of my first books for the year, to help remind me of what...more

like 2 likes · see review

Oct 13, 2011 Lauren Goldfish rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a lovely little book. What a lovely and unpredictable moment it evolved from:
After our Grand Canyon trip, Cassie and I hit the library for a book on the seven wonders of the world. On her own she decides it's time to use the library's search engine to find a book, and insists on heading up to the adult section. We're perusing (insert here a lecture from my Father about how 'peruse' a misused and misunderstood word) non-fiction, 031. I see about ten titles I want for myself (Hello, Wendell B...more

like · see review

Oct 06, 2011 Gayle rated it 3 of 5 stars

A lovely meditation on reading, "the only act in which we allow ourselves to merge with the consciousness of another human being." Ulin, book critic for the LA Times, laments his own growing inability to sit down and read, in a deep and sustained [old]fashion, in an era of delicious electronic distractions, especially with an omnivorous consciousness like Ulin's, who finds everything interesting. Ulin ponders what it means, now, to consume and process stories and information, that we no longer t...more A lovely meditation on reading, "the only act in which we allow ourselves to merge with the consciousness of another human being." Ulin, book critic for the LA Times, laments his own growing inability to sit down and read, in a deep and sustained [old]fashion, in an era of delicious electronic distractions, especially with an omnivorous consciousness like Ulin's, who finds everything interesting. Ulin ponders what it means, now, to consume and process stories and information, that we no longer take much time to ruminate and reflect: what does this do to the very structure of memory, the self, our sense of time and our actual engagement with a world in which bytes are as quickly consumed as forgotten? At the same time I read this book, I attended the keynote lecture to the American Library Association by Richard Rhodes, a Pulitzer prize-winning author and another omnivorous, deeply engagingly human thinker, who also happens to be my friend's dad. He attacked the same concepts, how the very structures of our memory and cognition are affected by our approaches to narrative. Few of us now can do what the Greeks did, committing vast tomes to memory and recital. And to think over 500 years ago all the debates were about humanity going to hell in a handbasket because the printing press would cheapen our brainwork, the very quality of our minds, by offering instant effortless narrative. Now we consider reading itself to be brainwork, engaging our imaginations and participating, but the classic ancients would lament our unconscious, blissfully lowered standards. There's definitely a zeitgeisty trajectory here, the intimate relations between technology and the brain and what this means to the mind and what it means to be human, going from onion skin technology all the way to Twitter. Memory? Consciousness? Soul? I, too, am beginning to feel like I have disposable brain, one that could use an upgrade: I can't even remember the last Facebook post I read. Everything's available, and therefore...lost. When I do read a book, it's a guilty pleasure, as if I'm going anachronistic, sneaking off the grid, exactly the opposite of what books actually do, which, ironically make me feel more engaged and aware of life. What does it all mean? Ulin and Rhodes are right to ask.(less)

like 1 like · see review

Aug 06, 2011 Linda rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ulin is insightful for the most part about the changes in how we read, the advent of the Internet and the Kindle - Nook type devices that more and more people are using to read. He evokes many of the nostalgic reasons I love books (and probably many others)... but explores how those devices change the landscape in so many ways. Of course, he just had to take his liberal jabs at Sarah Palin and give an admiring shout out to Obama, but I'll forgive him because he those were very few, and he stays...more Ulin is insightful for the most part about the changes in how we read, the advent of the Internet and the Kindle - Nook type devices that more and more people are using to read. He evokes many of the nostalgic reasons I love books (and probably many others)... but explores how those devices change the landscape in so many ways. Of course, he just had to take his liberal jabs at Sarah Palin and give an admiring shout out to Obama, but I'll forgive him because he those were very few, and he stays more to the topic at hand - reading. I have to admit, in some parts he started to sound like some of my liberal SDSU college professors, and he almost lost me at that point, but he quickly bounded back from that failing and got back to more objective assessments of the state of reading... it was a close call, but by the end, I was pleased to find more than a few quotes and thoughts to share with students in my upcoming college English classes. So, thanks David Ulin for that.

One thing he discussed was how when and where we read a book becomes as much a part of the experience as WHAT we read does. That has some interesting implications when I think about how online education is changing the "classroom" experience. Online classes, like reading online, separate us from the physical elements important to our learning experiences. For example, when I think about my online students, I have only names - no faces, no real ties, no real relationship. There's a disconnect. Same with how I feel about what I read online. I have no physical reference. For example (again), I can remember when, where and under what circumstances I read Martin Eden by Jack London, and those memories endear that book to me in a certain way. I have no such reference for any book I've read online OR for that matter, any STUDENT I've taught online. I have no physical reference. Is this loss significant? I think so. I think Ulin would agree with me, too.

I would have given it four stars, but those political diversions left a sour taste in my mouth (or mind...). (less)

like · see review

Jul 16, 2011 Rae rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: reading-writing-essays-poetry

Subtitle: Why books matter in a distracted time.

WHY I READ: It's a book about reading!

THE GOOD: Ulin raises some interesting questions: Is listening to a book the same as reading one? Is it reading when the print is on some sort of screen rather than on a physical page? His best ideas have to do with the quiet and solitary aspects of reading. I also loved the idea of the technological Sabbath day.

NOT SO GOOD: Ulin does get political at times. And the book is really just an extended version of hi...more

like 2 likes · see review

Jun 11, 2011 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not a bad little book--it's really just an impressionistic defense of deeply attentive reading. You wouldn't think that needed to be defended, but the author belongs to the slightly hysterical camp which sees threats to literacy in every new technology. Ulin isn't the worst offender in that regard, but he seems to listening to ranters like Nicholas Carr (The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains). These folks who are so concerned about the distractions of the internet are probably j...more

like 1 like · see review

May 08, 2011 Mary Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

The Lost Art of Reading by David L. Ulin

Ulin writes about how reading and reading from bound books fits into the information age, beginning with an observation from his fifteen-year-old that literature is dead. He moves quickly to the position that the gorilla in the room is that “literature doesn’t, can’t have the influence it once did” (4), and defines that position in numerous ways, from the impact of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense to the notion that “literature, at its best and most unrelenting...more The Lost Art of Reading by David L. Ulin

Ulin writes about how reading and reading from bound books fits into the information age, beginning with an observation from his fifteen-year-old that literature is dead. He moves quickly to the position that the gorilla in the room is that “literature doesn’t, can’t have the influence it once did” (4), and defines that position in numerous ways, from the impact of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense to the notion that “literature, at its best and most unrelenting, offers a slicing through of (sic) all the noise and the ephemera, a cutting to the chase” (25).

He reminisces about going to a place he knew only through the written description of Malcolm Lowry, seeing exactly what he had imagined, and appreciating that “language, at its most astute, … can collapse the distances, bring us into not jut the thoughts but also the perceptions of a writer, allow us, however fleetingly, to inhabit, literally, his or her eyes” (32). He laments, however, that such experiences are mostly in the past, for him pre-2006 and high-speed Internet (35), because distractions today interrupt the silence that is essential to reading.

Citing Kerouac, Didion, Fitzgerald, and numerous others, Ulin points out that “In December 2009, a study by the Global Information Industry Center at UC San Diego found that in 2008, Americans consumed information at the rate of about” a 300 page novel a day (80). He follows with the more and more typical argument that in the name of connectivity, technology distances us from each other, and even more from ourselves” (81). He refers to a piece he commissioned for the L. A. Times, in which Rich Cohen writes, “Facebook, with its flow of useless particularity, makes it impossible to forget, thus impossible to remember. Memory is really the story left behind by forgetting—the essence that remains when the years have stripped away all that useless particularity. You remember as much by forgetting as you do by remembering. But on Facebook, the past becomes the wound that is never allowed to heal so never scars into deep experience: (84).

Ulin asks, “Does it enhance or diffuse the power of the novel to read it in conjunction with the computer, to look up and literally watch the scenes take place? And: What does this mean for memory, for reading, for our own ability to invoke and then evoke, a shared narrative dream” (98)? He quotes Jane Smiley in 13 Ways of Looking at a Novel because of her concern and awareness that “If the novel has died for the bureaucrats who run our country … then the inner lives of their friends and family members are a degree more closed to them than before” (102). She worries that “if novels can be sidelined … have no effect of those in power … our society will be brutalized and coarsened by people who speak rather like us and look rather like us, but who have no way of understanding us or each other” (103).

Finally, Ulin raises the issue of speed of thought versus depth of thought, referencing the Net, hyperlinks and other electronic innovations. He concludes: “reading is a reckoning with time. … We regain the world by withdrawing from it just a little, by stepping back from the noise, the tumult, to discover our reflections in another mind … rejoin a broader conversation, by which we both transcend ourselves and are enlarged (151).
(less)

like · see review

Apr 04, 2011 jeremy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: gen-nonfiction

the lost art of reading was adapted from a much shorter piece that originally appeared in the los angeles times (for whom david ulin formerly served as book editor). as ulin emphasizes in this slim work, reading is an act requiring both engagement and immersion; an act that currently suffers from the ever-increasing onslaughts of hypermodern, technological distraction. ulin considers the effects of digital media upon the act of reading itself, as well as, more broadly, reading habits themselves....more

like 1 like · see review

Dec 05, 2010 Lars Guthrie rated it 5 of 5 stars

In ‘The Shallows,’ a book quoted from liberally in ‘The Lost Art of Reading,’ Nicholas Carr notes the way that older technologies are changing because of digital computers. Newspapers and magazines feature shorter articles, more color, more graphics, pull quotes, navigational aids, summaries. ‘Crawls’ and ‘flippers’ clutter TV screens. DVD viewers jump into online conversations about scenes as they watch them. Tweets explain musical reference points to concertgoers who are encouraged to text mes...more In ‘The Shallows,’ a book quoted from liberally in ‘The Lost Art of Reading,’ Nicholas Carr notes the way that older technologies are changing because of digital computers. Newspapers and magazines feature shorter articles, more color, more graphics, pull quotes, navigational aids, summaries. ‘Crawls’ and ‘flippers’ clutter TV screens. DVD viewers jump into online conversations about scenes as they watch them. Tweets explain musical reference points to concertgoers who are encouraged to text message back.

It’s true, it’s true. But I’m not so sure about Carr’s take on libraries. Perhaps in the initial days of digital mania, their ‘most popular service’ quickly became internet access. At my local library, there has been a steady increase in the number of internet stations, and they are heavily used. But unlike the old days, it’s not that hard to find one that’s open.

As more and more people carry along their own laptops, their own digital phones and pads everywhere they go, they could care less about using someone else’s. It might be true, as Carr says, that ‘the predominant sound in the modern library is the tapping of keys, not the turning of pages.’ But the primary reason people are going to my library is its stock in trade: books.

There’s no doubt that the way we read and even, perhaps, the amount of books we read, is changing. But fading out altogether? Maybe I’m myopic, but I don’t think so. There’s something you get from a book that you can’t get from any other medium.

Books by nature eliminate distractions, rather than multiplying them. They have what Ulin calls a ‘nearly magical power to transport us to other landscapes, other lives.’ Books demand total engagement, and that is why they have such paradoxical force. It’s rather odd that the quiet act of reading a book may be more interactive than looking at the most noisy and colorful web site. Instead of pulling us toward the next and then the next exciting image, they demand that we make our own images.

What is becoming harder, as Ulin notes, is finding the time and place for that total engagement. ‘Language is internal,’ he says. ‘And yet, what do we do in a culture where we are constantly invited to step out of the frame, to externalize imagination and to rethink how the process works?’

That is what ‘The Lost Art of Reading’ is all about. It’s not an obituary at all, and Ulin is quite realistic about what is happening. He is not saying we have to adjust for new technology; as Nicholas Carr points out, the new technology has already adjusted us. Ulin is searching for a way we can incorporate the old, because we need it.

Beyond the attractions of books as ‘ripcords, escape hatches, portals out of…life,’ the deep reading they require engenders the deep thought that we have to do to face a forbidding future. The polarized debate that keeps us glued to screens just perpetuates confirmation bias. Resolving problems means focusing on them longer than a soundbite.

‘If we frame every situation in terms of right and wrong,’ Ulin writes, ‘we never have to wrestle with complexity; if we define the world in narrow bands of black and white, we don’t have to parse out endless shades of gray.’ He effectively quotes Fitzgerald: ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.’ Books push us beyond our preconceptions.

Reading books, of course, is hardly a silver bullet, but Ulin makes an impassioned case for finding the space in our distractible culture for what has become, thanks to the book, an elemental part of our humanity.

Ulin doesn’t believe ‘that anything is lasting; all of it will be taken from us at the end. Chaos, entropy…the best that we can hope for are a few transcendent moments, in which we bridge the gap of our loneliness and come together with another human being. That is what reading has always meant to me and what, even more, it means to me now.’

Highly recommended.(less)

like 5 likes · see review

Jun 25, 2011 Nisah Haron rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-on-books

Sukar untuk saya tidak meneruskan pembacaan buku ini. Ulin seorang pencinta buku yang sanggup kembara ke luar negara hanya untuk ke kedai-kedai buku. Ketika teman wanitanya leka ke muzium, dia ke kedai buku. Setelah kembali ke dalam negara, dia membincangkan peranan internet dalam pembacaan kita. Adakah membaca blog, FB, twitter itu dikategorikan sebagai 'membaca'? Ada kajian yang dibentangkan tentang kesan aktiviti otak bagi kumpulan yang membaca buku dan membaca bahan elektronik.

Paling menari...more

like · see review

Mar 06, 2011 Heather Colacurcio rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I was browsing the new, non-fiction releases at my local library when I stumbled upon this one, and, without thinking twice, added it to my pile of books to check out. Starting it immediately after I brought it home, I was tempted to give up 100 pages into this extensive 150 page essay. Ulin seemed to go off on so many far removed tangents, I was wondering if his whole point was to distract me from reading instead of pointing out what distracted the reader. Luckily, in the final 50 pages, Ulin...more I was browsing the new, non-fiction releases at my local library when I stumbled upon this one, and, without thinking twice, added it to my pile of books to check out. Starting it immediately after I brought it home, I was tempted to give up 100 pages into this extensive 150 page essay. Ulin seemed to go off on so many far removed tangents, I was wondering if his whole point was to distract me from reading instead of pointing out what distracted the reader. Luckily, in the final 50 pages, Ulin brought up some points that resonated with me as an avid reader, book buyer, English major and future librarian.

Ulin discusses the fact that Twitter, Facebook and the internet as a whole has shaped society's view of reading. Instead of investing hours, days and weeks into novels, society prefers a few, casual seconds glancing at Tweets and posts. A reader who can devote themselves entirely to a book is becoming rare, and I, like Ulin, am deeply concerned.

The rise (albeit slow) of the E-reader has touched the printed word in a way I never thought possible. Ulin is cautious of these electronic devices and rightfully so; the E-reader is a threat to the bookstore, to the library, and to the reader that longs for a personal library and a real book in their hands. Browsing the bookstore is my hobby, becoming a librarian my dream, and without physical copies of books, that which brings me the greatest joy in my life has been transformed into something that I detest.

Ulin discusses the ways in which technology changes the way we read, both positively and negatively. His description of how the novel (or anything we read) can be enhanced by our instant connection to information via the internet made me think about my reading experiences of the past few years. I always cite my reading of Dave Cullen's Columbine as a reading experience that truly changed my life. However, I read that book with a picture in my head, a picture that was soon toppled when I turned to Google for pictures, videos and information that changed the mental images I created, and therefore, my entire reading experience. I can no longer remember exactly how I felt upon that first reading, and in subsequent readings, will never recapture those feelings. These type of experiences are exactly what concerns Ulin, a concern which creates tension between the world of reading and the internet. Are we losing our imagination to the availability of truth on the internet? On the contrary, does the internet enhance our experience of reading because it gives us a perspective that perhaps we did not have before? Ulin raises questions such as these, as well as a great deal more.

So what is the ultimate verdict here? Ulin doesn't seem to have a concrete theory about where reading or the reader is going in this technological culture. Ulin doesn't foresee any particular outcome, but that does not reduce the relevance of this work. Ulin, like so many of us who are enamored with books and reading, have serious worries about where we are going in terms of enjoying, processing and internalizing written texts. As a society, we need to ask ourselves where we are headed and where we came from; The Lost Art of Reading is precisely the kind of text that begins that important dialogue. (less)

like 3 likes · see review

Aug 21, 2011 Becky rated it 3 of 5 stars

the irony that I am on goodreads writing about this book isn't lost on me.
I think that everyone who teaches or studies literature in today's information-overloaded society should read this book. Or maybe everyone who is present in our information-overloaded society should read this book.
I liked it but it was a little stretched out (dry) at some parts. Probably was a great essay then he decided to make it into a book. Some parts of the book were a little too political for me (because that is one...more

like · see review

Oct 19, 2012 Peter Galamaga rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've recently read a few books about reading and the struggle many people are having with focus in the modern age. I've noticed frequent references in many of these books to The Shallows by Carr.The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
This was a short, enjoyable book - basically an extended essay.
At times I felt that the author wandered and, in the end, I was left unclear about what exactly his thesis is.
The book was worthwhile, but I think that Alan Jacobs' The Pleasure of Reading...more

like · see review

Sep 03, 2011 Amber Tucker marked it as to-read

Shelves: degree-related, i-may-steal-this-from-the-library, partially-read-on-hold, to-come-back-to

I'd buy this book in a moment, if only it would kindly appear before me on a bookstore shelf. I started reading it at a sadly tardy point in the summer, and by the time I was heading back to school the unfinished library book was screaming at me in frustration at my leaving it behind.

Okay, so I could be anthropomorphizing there. Maybe I'd just like to believe that this book loved me as much as I was loving it. David Ulin, I promise I will return to your fabulously far-reaching and philosophical...more

like 1 like · see review

Dec 30, 2010 Stefanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

You may have caught Ulin's 2009 Los Angeles Time article by the same title. The book is an expansion on the article and the book is quite good.

Before reading the book I imagined that it was going to be a rant against technology and a paean to the glory of books with lots of wailing about why no one reads anymore. This book is not that. Instead, this is a thoughtful consideration about the interplay of books and technology and how technology is both a good thing and a bad thing for books and a re...more You may have caught Ulin's 2009 Los Angeles Time article by the same title. The book is an expansion on the article and the book is quite good.

Before reading the book I imagined that it was going to be a rant against technology and a paean to the glory of books with lots of wailing about why no one reads anymore. This book is not that. Instead, this is a thoughtful consideration about the interplay of books and technology and how technology is both a good thing and a bad thing for books and a reading life.

Ulin is a book critic for the LA Times, it is his job to read and review books. But when he sits down to read for pleasure he discovered, one day, that he was unable to sink into a book and lose track of time and the world like he used to be able to do. He kept interrupting his reading to check his email, look at news feeds, turn on the television. His worry about keeping on top of things and not missing out, of staying connected in our 24/7 always on world was getting in the way of sustained and concentrated reading. But Ulin didn't stop to think about it - no time! - until one day when his fifteen-year-old son who was reading, and disliking, The Great Gatsby at school, told him literature was dead.

Thinking he would help his son with his reading and prove to him what a great book Gatsby is, Ulin began reading it that evening figuring that a few hours should be enough to catch up to where his son was in the book. It's then that it hits home how difficult reading nonstop for a few hours had become.

But Ulin isn't against technology. He even admits that sometimes when he is reading it is nice to be able to look something up for clarification or a different perspective. Technology can enhance our reading experience. He even owns a Kindle, but doesn't read on it much by the sound of it. No matter really. He thinks, hopes, ereaders could possibly turn more people into regular readers.

But at the same time that technology and our connected world can enhance the reading experience, it also hinders it. It pulls our attention away from books, doesn't give us time to think, keeps us from stepping back, from deeply engaging with an idea, a thought, a daydream.

What I like so much about this book is that Ulin doesn't have an answer to any of the many questions he asks. He explores possibilities and always brings it back to himself because he is implicated in the problem. It is not "people out there" or technology or any one thing in particular that is the source of our go-go-go world. Rather it is a way of being in the world that we have got ourselves into without paying much attention and now we are beginning to lift up our heads and wonder what the heck happened, how'd we get here? And where is here, exactly?

The one conclusion that Ulin does reach is that reading is still important, perhaps more important than it ever had been. Reading, in our 24/7 world becomes

an act of resistance in a landscape of distraction, a matter of engagement in a society that seems to want nothing more than for us to disengage. It connects us at the deepest levels; it is slow, rather than fast. That is its beauty and its challenge: in a culture of instant information, it requires us to pace ourselves. What does it mean, this notion of slow reading? Most fundamentally, it returns us to a reckoning with time. In the midst of a book, we have no choice but to be patient, to take each thing in its moment, to let the narrative prevail. Even more, we are reminded of all we need to savor - this instant, this scene, this line. We regain the world by withdrawing from it just a little, by stepping back from the noise, the tumult, to discover our reflections in another mind. As we do, we join a broader conversation, by which we both transcend ourselves and are enlarged.

Yet knowing this doesn't make it any easier for Ulin to read. He admits in the end he still has difficulty but he keeps at it anyway. (less)

like · see review

Nov 06, 2010 Janet rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy-essay

I loved this little book, a meditation on reading, on the reading life. It's not really about reading as a lost art, it's the private journey you take when you open the covers of a book, the conversation you have with the book and it has with you--the interface between one's reading and one's broader life--generously interspersed with thoughts on the subject by writers ranging from Jane Smiley and Nicholson Baker to Jennifer Egan and a writer I had not heard of before this, Eva Hoffman ('Time'),...more

like 4 likes · see review

Feb 10, 2013 Ckopphills rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed parts of this book (mostly from the beginning and end), and I share the author's core belief that the art of reading is something worth celebrating and preserving. That being said, much of the book felt like a jargon-filled diatribe -- or perhaps lament, which is to be expected by the title, and yet I had hoped for more than a series of personal anecdotes that did not always seem well-connected. For someone who focused a great deal on the ideas of narrative and linear thought, he didn'...more

like · see review

Nov 29, 2012 Kipi rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Those who believe reading is a multi-sensory experience

Shelves: non-fiction, read-in-2012, worth-re-reading

What is information overload doing to us? That is the question the author asks in this short little book. The point I found most interesting was the one in which he considers how such things as Facebook have changed us in several ways. First, while we assume that it helps keep us connected, it actually allows us to become more isolated than ever before since there is no need to go out and connect with people face to face. The second is that modern technology has eliminated our need to remember a...more

like · see review

Aug 15, 2011 Lori rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is a long essay on "Why books matter in a distracted time."
I found it interesting and applicable. I recognized myself in the way the author finds himself distracted by technology and the barrage of information that we allow into our lives, usually at the expense of deep, sustained reading. He cites several studies that have been done on how the fast paced onslaught of new information actually changes our brains. The question becomes, is the change for the better or worse? What do we lo...more

like · see review

Mar 03, 2011 Edwin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, library-books, non-fiction

This was a great little book I found randomly in the school library. I found myself immediately relating to the author, a book critic, writer and teacher. He suddenly found that he'd been having trouble sitting and focusing long enough to read a book. Too many other things called - TV, internet, etc. Coupled with a conversation with his teenage son, who proclaimed that "reading is over" or some such nonsense, he decides to explore if reading, at least deep and meaningful reading, is dead and if...more

like · see review

title link	preview: The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time
avg rating	preview: The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time Goodreads rating: 3.53 (428 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8518218-the-lost-art-of-reading?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333580534l/8518218.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8518218-the-lost-art-of-reading?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time by David L. Ulin[/url]

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

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (3)

Genres

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About David L. Ulin

Books by David L. Ulin

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About The Lost Art of R...

Quotes from The Lost Art of Readin...