Alan Jacobs (2) (1958–)

I picked up this book because, like many readers, I struggle with focusing on a book when there are so many distractions calling my name. I was hoping to find some specific advice on how to deal with all those distractions when trying to immerse myself in a book, but, alas, what I found instead was a lengthy academic treatise on the benefits of reading. Jacobs is preaching to the choir here! I already know why reading is wonderful--the question is how to do more of it.

It also didn't help that Jacobs is a Professor, and writes like one: in a heavily academic style which made my eyes glaze over. Then there was the constant repetition. He reiterated his points over and over again, and even re-quoted his sources, leaving me to wonder if I'd accidentally flipped back a few pages. I finished the book thinking this could have been better as a punchy essay rather than as a full-length book.

Still, I can definitely get behind the core philosophy of this book: read primarily for enjoyment, read at whim, and don't read so you can check something off a list. Great! I'm all for telling readers to embrace their own individual reading tastes, guilt-free.

The main piece of advice that really resonated with me was the concept that reading is something that works best when done in solitude. As someone who's tried to sneak chapters amidst the daily hustle of family life, this piece of insight really struck a chord. It’s not me; it’s the chaos of the living room! Realizing that my environment is at least partly to blame for my reading frustrations was a genuine lightbulb moment.

Jacobs also reminds us that life is noisy, and distractions have always been around. Even our ancestors struggled to keep their attention glued to a book; somehow, knowing that made me feel better about my own wandering focus.… (mehr)

Encouragement and tips for those interested in rediscovering, or if you're lucky, maintaining, the joyful ability to utterly lose oneself in a book for long periods of time in our modern, distracting age. Read at whim, place yourself in serendipity's path (forget trying to follow a set plan of reading, "100 Books You Must Read" style), read slowly, don't think you shouldn't re-read books you've read in the past as you can often come across something new even in a well-loved "familiar" work.

Refreshing in that the author, a literature professor, does not take the anti-technology route, which a book of this nature might be suspected to. Jacobs in fact found that reading on a Kindle gave him back his ability to concentrate for long periods of time on a book.… (mehr)

First sentence: The Book of Common Prayer came into being as an instrument of social and political control. There will be much else to say about its origins, but here we must begin: the prayer book was a key means by which the great lords who ruled on behalf of the young King Edward VI consolidated English rule of the English church. In making one book according to which the whole country would worship, Cranmer and his allies were quite consciously dismantling an immense and intricate edifice of devotional practice. They had both theological and political reasons for doing this, but the immediate effect was political and was widely seen as such.

This book is a biography not of a person but of a book--a religious book, The Book of Common Prayer. The chapters are as follows:

One Book for One Country
Revision, Banishment, Restoration
Becoming Venerable
The Book in the Social World
Objects, Bodies, and Controversies
The Pressures of the Modern
Many Books for Many Countries
The Prayer Book and Its Printers

Many chapters are chronological--focusing on the history of the book--religious/theological, political, social, and actual history. But the later chapters focus less on history and are more thematically arranged. I really found the first half engaging and fascinating. It was packed with so much I didn't know but wanted to know. The later chapters were more on changing times and the falling apart of the church. Well, that is an exaggeration I'm sure. It isn't so much falling apart of "the church" as it is the falling apart of the "British Empire" and the "Church of England." The book does not particularly "hold" like-minded individuals together as "one" worshipping body. There is no "one" book of Common Prayer, each country, each denominational break off can publish their own revision of the prayer book. If it sounds like I have a problem with that, I don't. [My personal favorite is the 1928 American revision of the Book of Common Prayer.]

I enjoyed this one for the most part. It probably can come across as a bit dry if you do not bring an interest in the subject.… (mehr)