It’s hard to find time for undistracted reading, and it’s easy to blame modern developments like digital technology. But Christina Lupton says that people have been feeling this way for more than 200 years. For centuries, people have been struggling to balance a desire for undistracted reading with their professional and family duties. By studying past struggles to make time for reading, we can pick up strategies to apply in our own lives – and understand why finding time for reading is not just a personal but a political issue.
Bonus clip
Click here to listen to a bonus clip of Tina discussing how twenty years of reading other books affected her experience re-reading the novel Magic Mountain.
Works mentioned
– Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Further reading
Christina Lupton at Avidly – In Praise of Distraction
Christina Lupton at Lapham’s Quarterly – You’ve Got Mail
Jessica Ferri at LitHub – How Professional Readers Read for Pleasure
Michelle Huneven at The Millions – On Walking and Reading at the Same Time
Gwen Glazer at New York Public Library – Slow-Burn Reads for a Lightning-Fast News Cycle
Robert Pogue Harrison at New York Review of Books – The Ultimate Reader
Julianne Werlin at Los Angeles Review of Books – The News Is Born