Publishers Weekly
12/09/2019
Journalist Schwartz (In the Mind Fields) presents an insightful hybrid of memoir and academic study on the subject of attention. She approaches her topic from the perspective of a person who began abusing Adderall in college, recounting her multiple attempts at quitting—she finally succeeded after a decade of use—before moving on to others’ stories. These include a psychiatrist who, with intent focus, learned to interpret the initially indecipherable communications of an aphasiac stroke patient, and famous authors who have written about the subject, such as David Foster Wallace and Aldous Huxley. Thankfully, Schwartz goes light on the overexposed subject of the internet’s effects on the attention span. When she does discuss this, it’s with thought-provoking research, including work done by Tristan Harris, Google’s “design ethicist,” who writes about how apps and websites are engineered to monopolize their users’ attention. The narrative takes an odd turn near the end, as Schwartz recounts dealing with a family crisis with no particular bearing on the subject of attention, before visiting a spiritual retreat in Central America. Nonetheless, this is a rich inquiry into what it means to pay (and maintain) attention in a world increasingly permeated with distraction and interference. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
"Casey Schwartz’s new book, out in April, is helping me reevaluate my relationship with screens at a moment when I’ve never been more dependent on them ... Closing the laptop, putting the phone in the other room, and curling up with this book has been the best part of my day."—Vanity Fair
"Attention: A Love Story had me rapt. Casey Schwartz is a formidable reporter, a rigorous researcher and a true artist of prose. She makes complicated information easily understood and elevates seemingly simple observations to a richer plain of meaning. More than that, though (and this is the toughest job in the business) she is an honest broker when it comes to telling her own story. Unflinching yet never confessional, this book took me to uncomfortable places but always in the most capable hands. It’s the finest of its kind I’ve read in ages."—Meghan Daum, author of The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through The New Culture Wars
“An extraordinary and moving treatment of that most ineffable of topics: our own attention and how we spend it. Schwartz has successfully mixed her own experiences with Tom Wolfe-like journalism to create an utterly engaging read."—Tim Wu, author of The Attention Merchants
"Schwartz’s book brims with ideas ... Schwartz is unusually self-aware, though she may not always think so. She is honest about her own vulnerabilities and self-doubt ... By personalizing her account, and her journey, she makes it a vivid, memorable thing, not simply instructive."—Post and Courier
"An antidote to the countless manuals devoted to attention-hacking and technology detox, the tired denouncements of our iPhone dependence ... It is consistently interesting and beautifully written."—New Statesman
“An insightful hybrid of memoir and academic study ... Thought-provoking ... This is a rich inquiry into what it means to pay (and maintain) attention in a world increasingly permeated with distraction and interference.”—Publisher’s Weekly
“A personal and professional study of the struggle with attention in an age of distraction ... Unfailingly honest ... By personalizing her account, and her journey, [Schwartz] enhances the book's potency without diluting its authority ... Being attentive is an acquired skill. Schwartz helps us think deeply and clearly about what it offers us.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Essential ... Attention: A Love Story asks two simple questions: ‘Why are we so susceptible to all the escape routes our technologies offer us in the first place?’ and ‘What are we fleeing?'”—Bitch Media
“With fascinating research and illuminating interviews, this is ruminative, provocative, and discussion worthy.”—Booklist
Library Journal
04/01/2020
Expanding an article for the New York Times Magazine, Schwartz (In the Mind Fields) explores the nature of attention. The most fascinating part of the book is Schwartz's exploration of her ten-year addiction to Adderall. An example of memoir at its best, this section of the book universalizes the personal. Unfortunately, the rest of the book does the opposite, with Schwartz constantly making assumptions about society in general. She is easily distracted, therefore, she concludes, we as a society are easily distracted. Nonetheless, she does take readers on detours through the lives and thoughts of writers who explored the idea of attention—David Foster Wallace, Aldous Huxley, William James, Simone Weil—which are worth reading. VERDICT Overall, an average memoir about one woman's struggle with addiction and subsequent attempts to find acceptance.—Derek Sanderson, Mount Saint Mary Coll. Lib., Newburgh, NY
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2019-12-01
A personal and professional study of the struggle with attention in an age of distraction.
After recounting her decadelong addiction to Adderall, journalist Schwartz (In the Mind Fields: Exploring the New Science of Neuropsychoanalysis, 2015) goes in search of attention in all its rather elusive manifestations, investigating its power to define a human life. In the process, she began to realize that the way all of us pay attention in this technological era had changed. Splintered attention and perpetual interruption are the norm. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, Schwartz asks questions of singular significance: "Why are we so susceptible to all the escape routes our technologies offer us in the first place? What are we fleeing?" With a critical and open mind, the author assesses the works of such disparate writers as David Foster Wallace, Simone Weil, William James, and Aldous Huxley, and she applies no less rigor to exploring attention with such avatars of expanded consciousness as Stanislav Grof and Gabor Maté. Schwartz writes that the chief ingredients of attention are curiosity and joy and that attention is not only about having a meaningful life, but being in the moment, deriving pleasure from the very act of being absorbed in one's observations rather than burying one's self in a device. The author is unfailingly honest about her own addiction to the iPhone and her vulnerabilities and self-doubt. By personalizing her account, and her journey, she enhances the book's potency without diluting its authority. While techno-distractedness is not the sole province of the young, those who have known no other reality in their brief lives would seem to be most susceptible to the allure of Silicon Valley's steady stream of creations, each designed to be irresistible. Even though the author has "yet to enroll in a digital detox," she points the way toward "helpful digital minimalism strategies."
Being attentive is an acquired skill. Schwartz helps us think deeply and clearly about what it offers us.