Literary Reference

Why Read?

Name: Why Read?
Author: Mark Edmundson
ISBN: 9781596917767

by Mark Edmundson

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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

About the Author, Mark Edmundson

Mark Edmundson teaches at the University of Virginia, where he is University Professor. A prizewinning scholar, he has published a number of works of literary and cultural criticism, including Why Read?, Literature Against Philosophy, Plato to Derrida; and Teacher: The One Who Made the Difference. He has also written for such publications as the New Republic, the New York Times Magazine, the Nation, and Harper’s, where he is a contributing editor.

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Editorials

Library Journal

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.