Rhetorical devices

Anecdotes

Paul Fairfield opens his podcast “The Importance of Reading Books” with an anecdote about his teenage years. He talks about his connection with the books he found in the local bookstore and suggests that the books helped him become the man he is today:

It seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, that I was getting my real education right there. There was the stuff I was supposed to be learning in school, and then there was this: These books and these writers. School didn’t inspire me, but those books did. They lit a fire in a teenager that would grow for decades. (ll. 4-7)

The anecdote is intended to inform the audience that reading books is beneficial for one’s long-term development. Furthermore, the anecdote’s purpose is to highlight the differences between generations and to suggest that something crucial has changed in the habits ...