Serious reading: deep engagement is self-fulfilling

Sven Birkerts: &#xA; &#xA; Fewer and fewer people, it seems, have the leisure or the inclination to undertake [serious reading]. And true reading is hard. Unless we are practiced, we do not just crack the covers and slip into an alternate world. We do not get swept up as readily as we might be by the big-screen excitements of film. But if we do read perseveringly we make available to ourselves, in…