It takes the average reader 3 hours and 41 minutes to read Entertaining Futility by Andrew McMurry
Assuming a reading speed of 250 words per minute. Learn more
In playfully pessimistic and thought-provoking essays, author Andrew McMurry explores a vital but fundamentally perverse human practice: destroying our planet while imagining we are not. How are humans able to do this? Entertaining Futility: Despair and Hope in the Time of Climate Change investigates the discourses of hope, progress, and optimism in the era of climate change, concepts that, McMurry argues, are polite names for blind faith, greed, and wishful thinking. The itemized list of humanity’s arrogance can quickly lead to despair, so McMurry compensates by presenting the news in a darkly comic and irreverent style. McMurry believes human culture relies on a full suite of rhetorical tricks to distract us from our own demise. He investigates the role language, discourse, media, and technology play in shaping perceptions and misperceptions of our complex environmental crises. Writing in a mode that freely mixes the scholarly, fictive, poetic, and personal, McMurry draws on philosophy, history, ecology, film, science fiction, and pop culture to raise questions that are difficult to face, let alone answer. In the author’s words, “our age is utterly paralyzing unless you can crack jokes about it.” Entertaining Futility offers no easy solutions to today’s environmental calamities and, in fact, claims that perhaps the continual proposing of solutions is part of the problem. Instead, McMurry encourages readers to examine their own deeply held beliefs about the environment and the future and to look more closely at where those beliefs originate. By pulling back the curtain, he reveals the rhetorical and cultural ruses that distract us from the reality of our environmental crises.
Entertaining Futility by Andrew McMurry is 221 pages long, and a total of 55,471 words.
This makes it 75% the length of the average book. It also has 68% more words than the average book.
The average oral reading speed is 183 words per minute. This means it takes 5 hours and 3 minutes to read Entertaining Futility aloud.
Entertaining Futility is suitable for students ages 12 and up.
Note that there may be other factors that effect this rating besides length that are not factored in on this page. This may include things like complex language or sensitive topics not suitable for students of certain ages.
When deciding what to show young students always use your best judgement and consult a professional.
Entertaining Futility by Andrew McMurry is sold by several retailers and bookshops. However, Read Time works with Amazon to provide an easier way to purchase books.
To buy Entertaining Futility by Andrew McMurry on Amazon click the button below.
Buy Entertaining Futility on Amazon