The Art of Reading is about the wonderful feeling of engaging with a novel or short story on all levels and learning how artful readers think about and approach the works they read. Whether you're someone who loves curling up with a good book, a writer who is looking for insights into how to get inside your readers' minds, or a student who wants to contribute to class discussions, there's something for you to find in this course.24-lecture course that brings together concepts and techniques rarely found in a single package.

DVD. Each accompanying course guidebook includes a glossary, biographical notes, and a bibliography. 24 lectures (30 min. each).

Disc 1. Artful reading and everyday reading -- Authors, real and impled -- Narrators, their voices and their visions -- Characters, beyond round and flat -- Descriptions, people, places, and the things -- Minimalists to maximalists to lyricists. -- Disc 2. Explosive devices, irony and ambiguity -- Reading for the plot, five simple words -- Master plots, the stranger and the journey -- The game is afoot, Sherlock Holmes -- The plot thickens, Scott and Bronte -- The plot vanishes, Faulkner and Woolf. -- Disc 3. Chapters, patterns and rhythms -- Scene and summary, showing and telling -- Subtexts, motives, and secrets -- Dialogue, the good, the bad the ugly -- Metafiction, fiction about fiction -- Adaptation, from fiction to film. -- Disc 4. Realism times four -- Thumbs up?, interpretation and evaluation -- A long short story, "Runaway" -- A classic novel, The age of innocence -- A baggy monster, War and peace -- Picking up the tools.