I like to think I’m a committed reader. After all, I read pretty much every day, and most days I read a minimum of 100 pages. So the idea of a book about the concept of the committed reader was pretty intriguing. Unfortunately, it turns out that reading about committed readers is not nearly as interesting as being a committed reader, and I’m not even sure if I am a committed reader by the author’s definition.
Stebbins’ objective with this book is to look at the many facets of committed reading. He uses the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary definition of reading as “the extent to which one reads or has read; literary knowledge” to describe what he means by a committed reader. However, it is the “literary knowledge” aspect that he is most interested in. Stebbins likes to classify, and so he considers reading material (books, periodicals, pamphlets and manuals), the reasons for information-seeking (utilitarian, pleasurable or fulfilling) and the domains that one might read in (work, leisure and non-work obligation). Later chapters expand on these themes, covering the study of reading, utilitarian reading, reading for pleasure, self-fulfilling reading (liberal arts as a hobby), reading in everyday life, and reading and society, continuing the list theme. Between the classifications, the ways they might be mixed and the possibility that reading a specific work might cross more than one reason for information seeking and/or domain, there are a lot of lists throughout the book. There are, for example, 18 types of volunteers and volunteering. At times it was like reading a list of lists.
There are certainly some intriguing areas of thought. For example, on pages 8–9, Stebbins describes how “the skills of reading fall into two great categories: artistic and analytic”. The former is about word and sentence structure, plot, figures of speech and imaginativeness. The latter relates to logic, argument and evidence. The skills are used by both the writer in constructing the work, and the reader in decoding it. Stebbins argues that utilitarian and fulfilling reading will draw on one or both of these sets of skills, while “reading for pleasure may be, and indeed often is, done without any significant presence of either”. I guess it’s always possible to find bad books, but in my experience, films can become smash hits with an extraordinary absence of plot, characterisation or scripting, provided there is enough action to carry the day. However I would say it is significantly rarer for a book to make it to publication and widespread success with such absences.
Stebbins claims to consider committed reading in an egalitarian way, where scholarly reading is as valuable as reading the classics, or indulging in popular fiction. Indeed, he actively disdains those who have a snobbery about what is “good” reading, what material has value. And yet, the book consistently carries a tone that reading popular works is in some manner not as valuable as other types of reading. I find this a little strange, given that our “classics” were, in their day, the popular works of fiction.
Ultimately, I was left wondering for what audience Stebbins had written this work. Busy professionals interested in this topic would probably more appreciate a nice six page journal article covering the highlights. The level of categorisation is not balanced with any strong feel for why this information is important, or how it might be used in a work or educational based context. Stebbins has produced a scholarly work which is well defined, but ultimately seems to me to serve little practical purpose – and perhaps it’s not meant to.