Date: April 1st 2008

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Mikita Brottman newest book--"a compelling condemnation of literature" (Douglas Rushkoff), that will make you "rethink your relation to reading" (Laura Kipnis), out April 15th from Soft Skull/Counterpoint Press--received a starred review in this week's Publishers Weekly. [Please reply to this email for a review if you don't yet have one.]

Starred PW. Web Pick of the Week
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA65459a06.html

The Solitary Vice: Against Reading
Mikita Brottman. Counterpoint/Soft Skull, $14.95 paper (224p) ISBN 9781593761875
Author and Maryland Institute College of Art professor Brottman (High Theory/Low Culture) challenges the conventional wisdom of her fellow compulsive readers, positing that "[w]hile illiteracy is just as dangerous as sexual ignorance, in both cases there's a case to be made for moderation." As the title entendre suggests, Brottman is an advocate of reading for pleasure, but she draws witty and serious ties between literacy and a number of impulses, compulsions and neuroses: voyeurism, celebrity worship, guilt, isolation and "Severe Disappointment with Reality." With thoughtful deference to those "smart, well-educated people... for whom reading is anything but 'fun-damental,'" she cites recent titles challenging the reading-is-good-for-you "superstition" (How to Talk About Books you Haven't Read, Everything Bad is Good for You), mines her own past for tales of reading excess ("I became something of a ghoul myself, buried all day in my bedroom... [except] to renew my library bo
oks") and looks hard at "some of the things literature... can't do." Brottman beats a winding path through library stacks, "ought" books and the virtues of true crime. Of course she rallies for the home team, locating reading's greatest virtue in its faculty for individual self-discovery (not unlike masturbation). With sharp observations, a brisk style and a wide range of topics, Brottman's is a rare feat: a crowd-pleaser that could make converts out of readers and nonreaders alike.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Publication Date:
April 15th, 2008

"THE SOLITARY VICE will make you rethink your own relation to reading. Brottman is wonderful at reminding us what a very complicated act-of fantasy, recompense, adventurism and (sometimes) perversity-reading a book can be." -Laura Kipnis


Mikita Brottman wonders, Just why is reading so great? It's a solitary practice and takes away from time that could be spent developing social networking skills. And if it's so important, why do we feel the need for slogans like "Reading Changes Lives" and "Champions Read"?

While basic literacy is imperative for anyone who hopes to live a fully functional life, Brottman is suspicious of the blanket assumption that reading is by necessity, a priori "good for you." While the ability to read may be valuable, is reading in itself really always a good thing? Who says that prolific readers are necessarily civic-minded people? Hitler was a great reader, after all, and so was the Unabomber.

As with any tongue-in-cheek polemic, Brottman aims to test assumptions, and one assumption she particular targets is that only great literature tells us truths about the human condition-Brottman shows how such "trash" as true crime and celebrity memoir allows people to see the world through the eyes of others and lets them travel deep into the darkness of the human condition.

Tackling the notion that nonreaders are doomed to despair and mental decay, Brottman argues that the value of reading lies not in its ability to ward off Alzheimer's or that it's a pleasant hobby. Rather, she argues, reading is ultimately not an act of pleasure but a tool for self-exploration-allowing people to travel into a darkness that is both personal and universal.

"Mikita Brottman is one of us: another victim of the unhealthiest and most solipsistic of media pleasures. In this compelling condemnation of literature, she nonetheless offers us one more reason to pick up a good book--her own"
--Douglas Rushkoff


About the Author:

Mikita Brottman was born and raised in Sheffield, England. She has a PhD in English Language and Literature from Oxford University, and has taught in various universities in Europe and the U.S. Her main field of research interest is the pathological impulse in contemporary culture; she has authored and edited a number of books on this subject, including, most recently, High Theory, Low Culture. She writes regularly for a number of publications, both mainstream and alternative, and is also a psychoanalyst in private practice. She is currently Professor of language, literature and culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

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