Attending to the Literary: The Distinctiveness of Literature is a foray into current debates about the nature of the literary. The book speaks to a broad audience of readers for whom the question "Why literature matters?" remains an urgent intellectual challenge.

Alan Singer is Professor Emeritus of English at Temple University. He has written extensively in the fields of literary theory, aesthetics, and the visual arts. His publications include Posing Sex: Towards a Perceptual Ethics (2018) and The Self-Deceiving Muse: Notice and Knowledge in the Work of Art (2010).