With its extraordinary mix of literature, neuroscience, history, and case studies, this beautifully written book exemplifies the alchemy that can happen when words come to life on the page. Reading can change the trajectory of a life, which changes our society, which propels our future species. Philip Davis shows us why this is so.
Philip Davis is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool. Reading for Life is an account of the work done by his research unit, the Centre for Research into Reading, Literature and Society (CRILS) in partnership with outreach charity The Reader since 2008. He is author of works on Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, George Eliot, Bernard Malamud, and on the uses of memory from Wordsworth to Lawrence, and has written various books on
literary reading. He is editor of OUP's series The Literary Agenda on the role of literature in the world of the twenty-first century and a new series entitled My Reading.