The Pleasures of Reading: In an Ideological Age

Alter not only speaks about the distinctive pleasures of reading poems, plays, and novels, but shows, by recourse to many passages from English, American, and French literature, how rich and diverse these pleasures can be. Defining literary language as "an intricate, inventively designed vehicle for setting the mind in restless pleasing motion," he proposes a set of concepts that will point a return to reading. He also offers fresh explanations of familiar terms such as character, structure, allusions, and perspective, and analyzes various texts. ISBN 0-671-62783-X: $18.95.