pickThe author uses diaries, library records, and other papers as well as elocution guides to reconstruct who was reading what in the 18th century and how. Reading was much more of a shared activity with people reading aloud to each other from newspapers, periodicals, non fiction, joke books, and religious works, and a good reading voice was essential.
bailedThis book looked great, but after an hour of the audio, I find myself not paying attention to it at all. I‘m not sure if it‘s me, the book, the timing, or the narrator. Maybe I‘ll try it again someday in print.
i love the feeling of checking off multiple books from currently reading to read #readinglife
pick(2017) We think of reading as a solitary activity, but in eighteenth century England, reading was also a social one: families read together in the evening, friends read to one other, readers formed clubs to read aloud from novels, histories, and plays. William's study discusses the why, where, who, how, and what of reading in company and it's a fascinating world with very different habits of literary consumption.
Interesting: the 18th century book market saw a demand for “miscellanies,“ collections of choice excerpts from longer works.
Some critics at the time were concerned about the ruin of culture due to the new generation's education through shallow excerpts instead of longer texts. Three hundred years later I share their concern, but maybe it's just history rhyming again.
The tagged book was my first read of the year, not the best book on books & reading I‘ve ever read , I did enjoy it . Her specialty is the history OF the book so she went deep on some elements of that I didn‘t get into. Short book & she did have lots of info in the appendix if you wanted to dig deeper, always appreciate that . #SundayFunday
Fascinating. 4w