The Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age

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by Robert Alter

W. W. Norton and Co.

Due/Published November 1996, 256 pages, paper

ISBN 0393314995

From one of our premier literary scholars, here is a learned and witty introduction to the "sheer vitality of literature and the satisfactions of a close, informed engagement with it" (New York Times). Robert Alter's illumination of the unique power of reading literature is especially valuable at a time when we are surrounded by electronic texts that distract more than engage and when the special claims of literature are disparaged by the high priests of literary theory.