The Committed Reader: Reading for Utility, Pleasure, and Fulfillment in the Twenty-First Century

This book is a study of committed reading, an activity animated by three main motives: utilitarian, pleasurable, and self-fulfilling. They are examined within the frameworks of library and information science and the serious leisure perspective as manifested across life's domains of work, leisure, and non-work obligation.

Robert A. Stebbins, FRSC, is Faculty Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Calgary. He has written over 225 articles and chapters and written or edited 41 books, including recent titles The Idea of Leisure: First Principles; Serious Leisure: A Perspective for Our Time; Personal Decisions in the Public Square: Beyond Problem Solving into a Positive Sociology; Leisure and Consumption: Common Ground/Separate Worlds; and Social Entrepreneurship for Dummies. Stebbins was elected Fellow of the Academy of Leisure Sciences in 1996, the Royal Society of Canada in 1999, and the World Leisure Academy in 2010.