The lost art of reading

this was more like a long essay than a book, with no chapters to break-up the main points. it was intellectually dense in parts, with lists of literature I haven't read or heard of, but other parts were easily relatable, such as the danger of placing novels solely within ebooks where content can (and has) been rescinded by the company that produced it. he laments the early editions of ereaders were dark grey type on light grey screens - hardly enticing anyone away from the crisp black type on a clean, white page (not to mention the physicality of a book - it's ability to be borrowed, perused on a bookshelf, be categorized as the owner sees fit). and he's hit on a truth that email and twitter and net surfing have conditioned us to read widely but not deeply, and that our concentration is easily broken (especially when trying to read a book on an electronic device). I liked how he saw reading as an individually paced medium (as opposed to film where we must follow at a prescribed pace) where we can disconnect from the present world and enter any number of new ones. but mostly, he encourages us to keep reading quality literature, and to allow ourselves to be affected, and changed, by it.