Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Feb 2016
288 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
A bestselling author and distinguished critic goes back to high school to find out whether books can shape lives.
It's no secret that millions of American teenagers, caught up in social media, television, movies, and games, don't read seriously - they associate sustained reading with duty or work, not with pleasure. This indifference has become a grievous loss to our standing as a great nation - and a personal loss, too, for millions of teenagers who may turn into adults with limited understanding of themselves and the world.
Can teenagers be turned on to serious reading? What kind of teachers can do it, and what books? To find out, Denby sat in on a tenth-grade English class in a demanding New York public school for an entire academic year, and made frequent visits to a troubled inner-city public school in New Haven and to a respected public school in Westchester county. He read all the stories, poems, plays, and novels that the kids were reading, and creates an impassioned portrait of charismatic teachers at work, classroom dramas large and small, and fresh and inspiring encounters with the books themselves, including The Scarlet Letter, Brave New World, 1984, Slaughterhouse-Five, Notes From Underground, Long Way Gone and many more. Lit Up is a dramatic narrative that traces awkward and baffled beginnings but also exciting breakthroughs and the emergence of pleasure in reading. In a sea of bad news about education and the fate of the book, Denby reaffirms the power of great teachers and the importance and inspiration of great books.
"The sample size of his informal survey is so small, however, that this conclusion, while inspiring and hopeful, comes across as foregone." - Publishers Weekly
"A readable work recommended for anyone who agrees that reading widely is vital to a productive, fulfilling life. Educators may gain occasional tidbits on teaching style, while librarians will recognize tactics used to entice teenage readers." - Library Journal
"An upbeat portrait of fine teachers and the students they inspire." - Kirkus
"Definitely a worthy successor to Great Books. The fight against the dumbing down of this country continues with this highly readable book. David Denby really cares about whether American literature has a future. You probably should too." - James Patterson
"In this nuanced and vivid account of great books taught in three very different schools, Denby has proven what teachers have always known: that taught with passion and commitment, literature old and new can inspire any and every student. This is a necessary bulwark against knee-jerk cynicism about the decline of reading among young people." - Dave Eggers, co-founder, 826 National and former editor, The Best American Nonrequired Reading
"Lit Up reminds us that the study of literature can be life-changing, especially for adolescents, who are deciding who they are and who they hope to be. David Denby rises above the stale debates about education of our time to show the power of great teaching and great books." - Diane Ravitch, author of Reign of Terror and The Life and Death of the Great American School System
"A beautifully written meditation on why we need books, dedicated teachers, and the power of classroom conversation, the kind where passion ignites and community thrives. If you care about reading, and you need to care about reading, read this book!" - Sherry Turkle, author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology, MIT
"James Baldwin claimed that, 'Art would not be important if life were not important. And Life is important.' And this is why we need to read David Denby's Lit Up. Avoiding generalizations and preconceived notions, this book is an investigation of the essential role of ideas and imagination in our system of education, offering valuable insights into actual classrooms and the dynamic relation between great teachers and their students." - Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran
This information about Lit Up was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
David Denby is the author of Great Books, an acclaimed account of returning to college and reading the Western classics during the curriculum wars; American Sucker, Snark, and Do the Movies Have a Future? He is a staff writer and former film critic for The New Yorker, and his reviews and essays have appeared in The New Republic, The Atlantic, and New York magazine, among other places. He lives in New York City with his wife, writer Susan Rieger.
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