- Imprint: Vintage
- ISBN: 9781529936780
- Length: 336 pages
- Price: £12.99
Look Closer
How to Get More Out of Reading
Financial TimesReading Look Closer is akin to wandering through an art gallery with an expert on painterly detail by your side: you see familiar shapes afresh and are introduced to new artists along the way
Stephen FryAbsorbing, inspiring, open-hearted and welcoming, Look Closer is the best book about reading I have read for a very, very long time. Brilliantly clever without being even remotely academical or scholarly in its manner, this funny, warm and all-embracing book is for anyone and everyone
The SpectatorA welcome intervention in the alarming decline of literacy . . . Douglas-Fairhurst is like that one teacher we had at school who, despite the years, was still hopelessly in love with their subject
Natalie HaynesA glittering gem of a book. This is a prism through which other books can be read more sharply, more meaningfully. I will be buying it for everyone I know who loves books
Oldie, *Christmas Gift Guide 2025*Look Closer . . . might be the book finally to get someone young (or old) off their smartphone. It digs away at literary classics of all sorts to find out why and how they work
Country LifeLook Closer is a masterclass in how to make academic writing fun, stuffed with erudite anecdotes about authors whom we rarely think of as three-dimensional characters… A must read
Literary ReviewI can’t recall reading a book that made me so immediately want to dive straight into a library… This is a wonderful book, packed with detail and knowledge but also intuition, warmth and infectious enthusiasm
Sunday TimesLook Closer is a love letter to the energising thrill of literature, and the bracing challenge of it too
Spectator, *Books of the Year*A delightful and much needed paean, in our attention-deficit era, to the pleasures of close and slow reading
The Times, *Books of the Year*A lively book that seeks to enthuse us to read more deeply, more thoughtfully
About Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College. His books include Becoming Dickens, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, The Story of Alice, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award, and Metamorphosis. He writes regularly for publications including The Times, the Literary Review and the Spectator. Radio and television appearances include Start the Week and The Culture Show and he has also acted as the historical consultant on TV adaptations of Jane Eyre, Emma, Great Expectations, the BBC drama series Dickensian and both of the Enola Holmes feature films for Netflix. He has judged the Booker Prize and the Baillie Gifford Prize, and in 2015 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Details
All editions
- Hardback 2025
- Paperback 2026
- Ebook 2025