David L. Ulin

The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Are So Important in a Distracted Time (Sasquatch Books)

Los Angeles Times book critic David L. Ulin will discuss and sign his new boook on the importance of reading in a digital culture, The Lost Art of Reading. Reading is a revolutionary act, an act of engagement in a culture that wants us to disengage. In The Lost Art of Reading, David L. Ulin asks a number of timely questions — why is literature important? What does it offer, especially now? Blending commentary with memoir, Ulin addresses the importance of the simple act of reading in an increasingly digital culture. Reading a book, flipping through hard pages, or shuffling them on screen — it doesn’t matter. The key is the act of reading, the seriousness and depth. Ulin emphasizes the importance of reflection and pause allowed by stopping to read a book, and the focus required to let the mind run free in a world that is not one's own. Far from preaching to the choir, The Lost Art of Reading is a call to arms, or rather, pages. David L. Ulin was book editor of the Los Angeles Times from 2005–2010. He is the author of The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith (Viking, 2004; Penguin, 2005), selected as a Best Book of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune. He has edited two anthologies of Southern California literature: Another City: Writing from Los Angeles (City Lights, 2001), a Los Angeles Times Book Review Best Book of 2001; and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology (Library of America, 2002), which received a California Book Award from the Commonwealth Club of California, and was selected by the Los Angeles Times Book Review as a Best of the Best for 2002. He has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, LA Weekly, Los Angeles, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered; his essay "The Half-Birthday of the Apocalypse" was nominated for a 2004 Pushcart Prize. For the 2008–2009 academic year, he was a visiting professor in the MFA in creative writing program at the California Institute of the Arts. Currently, he teaches in USC's Masters of Professional Writing program, and in the low residency MFA in creative writing program at the University of California, Riverside's Palm Desert Graduate Center. Photo of the author by Noah Ulin. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS OCTOBER 27, 2010.