Welcome to Mortification of Spin, a casual conversation about things that count with Carl Truman, Todd Pruitt, and Amy Bird.

Mortification of Spin is a weekly podcast from the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Let's join this week's conversation. Well, welcome to Mortification of Spin.

I'm Amy Bird, and I'm here with my two co-host, Carl Truman and Todd Pruitt.

And today we want to talk about a topic that is near and dear to my heart.

After talking to many lay people in the church, there just really seems to be a need to have

some more teaching on just how to read a book and better reading habits.

They're having trouble sticking to a book or maybe with what we're experiencing with the

internet these days.

Our brains are physiologically changing.

Nicholas Carr has written a book about that called The Shallows to where we're really

just readers to gather information more rather than to read for understanding. So today we're

going to talk a little bit about how to read a book, right guys? Yes. We have to say, Amy,

absolutely delighted that you've learned to read recently.

I think it's made you a better person. It's made you more fun conversationist and a better person.

Well, I would, I mean, obviously I'm a fan of comic books and pop-up books, scratch and sniff.

I love pictures. On a serious note, I think every history book

ought to have pictures. Carl, are you going to do something about that? I have to admit,

I've been reading a lot of the educational political philosopher James Schaul recently,

and he cites peanuts on almost every other page.

And he has completely opened my eyes to the depth of social critique and clever philosophy in peanuts.

So as a serious point, I've actually become a little more positive to the idea of some cartoons.

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