The Pleasures of Reading: chewing the cud, silence, broccoli, and a hot fudge sundae

Ever since I read How to Think, which I loved, I wanted to read more of Alan Jacobs' writing. So I found a used copy of his book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction.¹ It's been sitting in the TBR pile for a while, but I wanted a smaller book to bring on a recent trip, so I pulled The Pleasures of Reading from the stack and took it with me. It's a delightful little book on reading for pleasure and growth. You won't be guilted into reading a list of x number of books that you must read before you die, but Jacob writes about the ways in which we can stretch our minds and tastes as readers. And above all, take pleasure in reading.

There are so many quotable quotes, but here are a few that stood out to me:

"Above all, take time to discern, what the book - or story, or poem, or essay, or article - has to offer you. Slow down. Make a point of revisiting passages that seems especially rich, or especially confusing, or for that matter especially offensive. Chew the textual cud for a while before sending it to the further stomachs of your mind, you may well spare yourself a case of heartburn later."  pg. 97.

""The reader must come across" - that is why the reader can't do without solitude and concentration. The effort has manifold rewards, but effort is required. It is lessened by habit, but never eliminated; and attentiveness remains always an achievement, one that cannot be taken for granted. Yet when it happens, it can happen powerfully. "I can always tell when you're reading somewhere in the house." Francis Spufford's mother used to say to him when he was a child. "There's a special silence, a reading silence.""  pg. 125.

"I used to try to determine in advance what books I would read over the summer, but eventually realized that to put any book on such a list nearly guaranteed that I would not read it. No matter how anxiously I had been anticipating it, as soon as it took its place among the other assigned texts, it became as broccoli unto me - and any book not on the list, no matter how unattractive it might appear in other contexts, immediately became as desirable as a hot fudge sundae. And after the years I have decided that this inattentive resistance to the predetermine is a gift, not a disability." pg. 145.

1. Ironically, my copy is a discard from a public library.