Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind

Reading Level
Grade 13
Time to Read
3 hrs 1 mins

Reading Level

What is the reading level of Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind?

Analysing the books in the series, we estimate that the reading level of Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind is 12th and 13th grade.

Expert Readability Tests for
Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind

Readability Test Reading Level
Flesch Kincaid Scale Grade 10
SMOG Index Grade 12
Coleman Liau Index Grade 9
Dale Chall Readability Score Grade 8

Reading Time

3 hrs 1 mins

How long to read Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind?

The estimated word count of Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind is 45,105 words.

A person reading at the average speed of 250 words/min, will finish the book in 3 hrs 1 mins. At a slower speed of 150 words/min, they will finish it in 5 hrs 1 mins. At a faster speed of 450 words/min, they will finish it in 1 hrs 41 mins.

Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind - 45,105 words
Reading Speed Time to Read
Slow 150 words/min 5 hrs 1 mins
Average 250 words/min 3 hrs 1 mins
Fast 450 words/min 1 hrs 41 mins
Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind by Alan Jacobs
Authors
Alan Jacobs

More about Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind

45,105 words

Word Count

for Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind

192 pages

Pages
Hardcover: 192 pages
Kindle: 192 pages

4 hours and 51 minutes

Audiobook length


Description

From the author of HOW TO THINK and THE PLEASURES OF READING IN AN AGE OF DISTRACTION, a literary guide to engaging with the voices of the past to stay sane in the presentW. H. Auden once wrote that "art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead." In his brilliant and compulsively readable new treatise, Breaking Bread with the Dead, Alan Jacobs shows us that engaging with the strange and wonderful writings of the past might help us live less anxiously in the present--and increase what Thomas Pynchon once called our "personal density."Today we are battling too much information in a society changing at lightning speed, with algorithms aimed at shaping our every thought--plus a sense that history offers no resources, only impediments to overcome or ignore. The modern solution to our problems is to surround ourselves only with what we know and what brings us instant comfort. Jacobs's answer is the opposite: to be in conversation with, and challenged by, those from the past who can tell us what we never thought we needed to know.What can Homer teach us about force? How does Frederick Douglass deal with the massive blind spots of America's Founding Fathers? And what can we learn from modern authors who engage passionately and profoundly with the past? How can Ursula K. Le Guin show us truths about Virgil's female characters that Virgil himself could never have seen? In Breaking Bread with the Dead, a gifted scholar draws us into close and sympathetic engagement with texts from across the ages, including the work of Anita Desai, Henrik Ibsen, Jean Rhys, Simone Weil, Edith Wharton, Amitav Ghosh, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Italo Calvino, and many more.By hearing the voices of the past, we can expand our consciousness, our sympathies, and our wisdom far beyond what our present moment can offer.