Thus my efforts throughout this book to dissociate reading from academic life, not just because teachers and professors make reading so much more dutiful and good-for-you than it ought to be but also because the whole environment of school is simply alien to what long-form reading has been for almost all of its history. Rarely has education been about teaching children, adolescents, or young adults how to read lengthy and complicated texts with sustained, deep, appreciative attention—at least, not since the invention of the printing
