Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective of or relating to readers.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • I wanted a kind of readerly innocence of the inner workings of the sausage factory to inform my list.

    Possible Impossible: Best-of Book Lists 2010

  • She was the reason that Art in America was so well-written while being "readerly" and as jargon and trendy-language-free as possible.

    SHARKFORUM: OPINION WITH TEETH 2008

  • For a while, I kept things like Bolaño's By Night in Chile, Tanizaki's Seven Japanese Tales, and Zoe Wicomb's Playing in the Light on the possibles list, but they came off one by one for different reasons Tanizaki because I wanted novels rather than more stories, Wicomb because I find the shifting viewpoints of the novel annoying and didn't really look forward to rereading it and though I adore her You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town, I once included it in a class and it was just too subtle for the students to appreciate, the Bolaño because it requires a certain kind of readerly sophistication that I just don't know how to teach to kids who've just come from high school and, more often than not, don't like reading.

    Archive 2008-10-01 2008

  • For a while, I kept things like Bolaño's By Night in Chile, Tanizaki's Seven Japanese Tales, and Zoe Wicomb's Playing in the Light on the possibles list, but they came off one by one for different reasons Tanizaki because I wanted novels rather than more stories, Wicomb because I find the shifting viewpoints of the novel annoying and didn't really look forward to rereading it and though I adore her You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town, I once included it in a class and it was just too subtle for the students to appreciate, the Bolaño because it requires a certain kind of readerly sophistication that I just don't know how to teach to kids who've just come from high school and, more often than not, don't like reading.

    Murder Madness Mayhem 2008

  • Your evident generosity of spirit, wit and good readerly sense are much appreciated by the Old Dog.

    A Passion for Life « Tales from the Reading Room 2010

  • At what point do you give up on that ‘something’, that readerly prize for continuing to read?

    A Bit of an Experiment « Tales from the Reading Room 2010

  • In "Finding Everett Ruess," David Roberts, an accomplished climber-turned-journalist, tells three intertwined stories: of the young man's brief life; of his unlikely afterlife, when his writings were published and became the object of readerly devotion; and of a kind of detective story— Mr. Roberts, tracking Ruess's route, found a body and had it tested for Ruess's DNA the preliminary tests showed a match, but later ones did not.

    Climbing Mount Everett Michael J. Ybarra 2011

  • By his definitions, I strongly value readerly qualities, whereas extreme writerly qualities like complete lack of punctuation and indeterminacy of meaning leave me cold.

    Reading Workshop I « Tales from the Reading Room 2010

  • One has certain models of excellence, certain standards of prose evolved with the hope sometimes of teachers and editors, and certain readerly expectations that one hopes, as a writer, to satisfy.

    Beyond the Underground: 2010

  • Conventional academic wisdom now holds that there are two kinds of book: difficult, "writerly" art-novels (for intellectuals) and simple "readerly" mass-market fiction (for the rest of us peasants).

    In Brief: Science Fiction Tom Shippey 2011

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