The many ways of reading …

… What we talk about when we talk about books – TheTLS. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

 … reading in print is supposed to be a sedentary activity which absorbs the reader, situated in opposition to a complex of online reading-based activities (browsing, posting, retweeting, commenting). Price offers, by contrast, dense histories of marginalia and dog-earing, of books sold, loaned, redacted, recommended and withheld – multi-tasking rather than rapt attention. Where reading books is assumed to palliate pathological issues including anxiety and depression, Price draws attention to the history of moralistic opposition to books (particularly novels) as spreaders of disease, and, more broadly, to readers who turn to literature not to be sedated but rather to be stimulated. Reading books has, Price shows, fostered community and conversation, and still does.