You can't lose something you never had

My approach to David Ulin's book The Lost Art of Reading: Why books matter in a distracted time came from a hopeful place. Personally, it wasn't until somewhere late in high school or the beginning of my time in college that I began to value reading for intrinsic reasons. Prior to that, reading was a forced and joyless endeavor.

Looking back on my relationship with reading up this point, perhaps I did not value reading because I did not value what Ulin concludes, is one of of the essential ends of reading - silence. Silence had no place in my life as a kid; this was a time in which my brain waves resembled a Looney Tunes show. A series of ever changing, chaotic, scenes that make little sense when viewed objectively - but funny as hell.

What Ulin seeks to uncover in this approximately 150 page book (which reads more like a pamphlet) is not a laundry list of nostalgic reasons to lament how the art of reading continues to lose traction among all segments of the global population as much as it is an inquiry into what importance the art of sustained reading still holds.

The most satisfying conclusion that Ulin reaches is a paradox of sorts. Despite the increasing interconnectedness of our global society, Ulin posits that it is the act of reading, not tweeting or making / checking status updates, which offers "the blurring of boundaries that divide us."

Ulin's assertion that reading's importance lies in being able to engage with and immerse oneself in lives, cultures, and social situations different from our own. It was this experience with Alice Sebold's work Lucky that ignited my own intrinsic desire to read.

Some may contend that the act of engaging with other individuals, cultures, and time periods is precisely what the age of Web 2.0 offers in a manner far outpacing what any printed book can offer. And if this is true, then maybe people like Ulin and those who agree with his stance as stated in The Lost Art of Reading will only know whether or not this is true if they engage in modern media with the same vigor and interest put towards print.