Why Read?

by Mark Edmundson

Overview

In this important book, acclaimed author Mark Edmundson reconceives the value and promise of reading. He enjoins educators to stop offering up literature as facile entertainment and instead teach students to read in a way that can change their lives for the better. At once controversial and inspiring, this is a groundbreaking book written with the elegance and power to change the way we teach and read.
Why Read was a PSLA Young Adult Top 40 non-fiction title 2004

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596917767
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	12/01/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	514,078
File size:	607 KB

About the Author

Mark Edmundson is NEH/Daniels Family Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Virginia. A prizewinning scholar, he is the author of Literature Against Philosophy, Plato to Derrida, and the widely praised memoir, Teacher: The One Who Made the Difference. He has written for the New Republic, the New York Times Magazine, the Nation, and Harper's, where he is a contributing editor.
Mark Edmundson teaches at the University of Virginia, where he is university professor. A prizewinning scholar, he is the author of Why Write?, Why Teach?, Why Read?, Teacher, The Death of Sigmund Freud, and The Fine Wisdom and Perfect Teachings of the Kings of Rock and Roll. His writing has appeared in such publications as the New Republic,the New York Times Magazine, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Nation, the American Scholar, Raritan and Harper's. He lives in Batesville, Virginia.

Editorial Reviews

Edmundson (English, Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville) calls for a new humanist education that stresses the importance of literary reading and teaching in making a life and ethical decisions. Expanding on his essay "On the Uses of the Liberal Arts" (Harper's), he discusses the interpretation of literature as a process of understanding, identification, impersonation, and spiritual truth, which leads to the reader's developing a final narrative or life vision. Using this framework, Edmundson describes his own method of teaching Henry James, Shakespeare, Homer, Dickens, and Wordsworth and also considers the critical writings of Emerson, Orwell, Frye, de Man, and Matthew Arnold, among others. He criticizes America's consumer society and university culture, seeing the proper study of literature as a way to make the society more open, fulfilling, and democratic. Engaging and controversial, this book will lead to discussion and debate. Recommended for education and literature collections.-Gene Shaw, NYPL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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