SCAN ARTIST: HOW EVELYN WOOD CONVINCED THE WORLD THAT SPEED-READING WORKED
Book ID/图书代码： 02919019C00019
English Summary/英文概要： The best-known educator of the twentieth century was a scammer in cashmere. "The most famous reading teacher in the world," as television hosts introduced her, Evelyn Wood had little classroom experience, no degrees in reading instruction, and a background that included work at the Mormon mission in Germany at the time when the church was cooperating with the Third Reich. Nevertheless, a nation spooked by Sputnik and panicked by paperwork eagerly embraced her promises of a speed-reading revolution. Journalists, lawmakers and two US presidents lent credibility to Wood’s claims of turbocharging reading speeds through a method once compared to the miracle at Lourdes. Time magazine reported Woods grads could polish off Dr. Zhivago in one hour; a senator swore that Wood’s method had boosted his reading speed to more than ten thousand words per minute.
But science showed that her method taught only skimming, with disastrous effects on comprehension--a fact Wood was aware of from early in her career. Fudging test results, and squelching critics, she founded a company that enrolled one million. The course’s popularity endured even as evidence of its shortcomings continued to accumulate. Today, as apps and online courses attempt to spark a speed-reading revival, this engaging look at Wood’s rise from mission worker to marketer exposes the pitfalls of embracing a con artist’s worthless solution to imaginary problems.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 二十世紀美國最家喻戶曉的閱讀教育家＝史上最大教育騙局？
騙過記者、律師、《時代雜誌》以及兩任美國總統！
美國教育史上最丟臉的一次，從傳教士到速讀大師，伊芙琳·伍德的故事顯示了界於營銷和誤導之間的界線有多麼模糊。
當「惡血」(Bad Blood)遇上「自然拼音教材」(hooked on phonics)！
獻給喜歡《惡血: 矽谷獨角獸的醫療騙局! 深藏血液裡的祕密、謊言與金錢》的讀者
當電視主持人將她介紹為「世界上最著名的閱讀老師」時，伊芙琳·伍德幾乎沒有任何課堂經驗，也沒有閱讀教學的學位，她僅有的背景只是曾在德國摩門教團工作過，且當時該教堂在與第三帝國合作。
然而，一個被蘇聯發射第一顆人造衛星和越來越多的文書工作所嚇壞的國家，卻立刻熱切地擁抱了她所宣稱的「速讀革命」。包括記者、律師，甚至兩任的美國總統都對她的說法賦予了信任，她宣稱可以透過某種方式提高閱讀速度，她的方法甚至曾被比作仙丹妙藥。當時的《時代》雜誌報導，伍德的畢業生可以在一小時內讀完整本的《齊瓦哥醫生》，同時一位參議員發誓說，伍德的方法將他的閱讀速度提高到每分鐘一萬多個單字。
但是科學表明，她的方法只會教人略讀，而且這對理解產生災難性的影響－－而這是伍德早在她的職業生涯初期就意識到的事實。然而為了編造測試結果並壓制批評，她成立了一家公司，並吸引了100多萬人註冊。儘管關於該課程缺點的證據不斷出現，它受歡迎程度仍然持續增加。
如今，隨著各式各樣企圖復興速讀風潮的app和線上課程不斷出現，伍德從傳教士搖身一變為詐騙營銷大師的故事正是給今日讀者一計提醒，也讓我們見到人們多麼容易掉入這種用毫無價值的方式解決一個本來就不存在的問題的陷阱。
(Zoe)
Awards/获奖情况：★本書獲選CrimeReads列入最佳真實犯罪書單！
★華爾街日報、圖書館期刊、書單雜誌等媒體一致推薦
★紐約時報暢銷作家Jonathan Alter推薦
"Appearances can deceive: Maybe Wood was like the Brewster sisters in ’Arsenic and Old Lace,’ those sweet little old ladies who outdid the most sinister of criminals."
-- Wall Street Journal
"Biederman takes a fascinating look at how Wood’s program thrived, and what it meant that an eager nation was so willing to believe that flipping through the pages was not just reading, but a kind of public service."
-- CrimeReads, rating Scan Artist as a Best-of-True-Crime-Book
"A clearly written book, laced with wry humor amid condemnation."
-- Library Journal
"An intriguing and surprising biography of a woman was once a household name"
-- Booklist
"I read Scan Artist in thirty minutes! Actually, I didn’t, because the Evelyn Wood method doesn’t work. But when I did mosey my way through this enjoyable book, I found a great tale of American hucksterism."
-- Jonathan Alter, New York Times bestselling author of The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies
"Scan Artist is a riveting portrait of an underrepresented archetype: the female con artist. Meticulously researched and cinematically plotted, Marcia Biederman’s book excavates biographical details that paint a comprehensive picture of Evelyn Wood’s milieu and motivations. Though I did not read at the rate of thousands of words per minute, as Wood may have claimed, my pages turned rapidly as I devoured this dastardly, delightful character."
-- Elizabeth Greenwood, author of Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud
"If Americans could split the atom, track satellites in outer space, and build missiles, why shouldn’t reading methods also make spectacular advances?The fact that supersonic reading becomes skimming did not deter Utah teacher Evelyn Wood. Biederman’s thoroughly researched biography deserves to be read slowly. It is a fascinating case study of the thin line between adroit marketing and misleading hyperbole."
-- Robert L. Hampel, author of Fast and Curious: A History of Shortcuts in American Education
About the Author/作者介绍： 瑪西婭·比德曼（Marcia Biederman）
前自由記者，曾在《紐約時報》，《紐約商業》，《紐約雜誌》，《紐約觀察報》和《Newsday》等媒體上發表過150多篇文章，現在她左手寫推理小說，右手寫紀實文學，使她的非小說作品讀起來像偵探小說一樣精彩。 她是Patricia Murphy and the Rise and Fall of a Restaurant Empire一書的作者，她住在紐約。
Marcia Biederman is a writer who has appeared in the New York Times, Crain’s New York Business, New York Magazine, the New York Observer, and Newsday. She is also the author of Popovers and Candlelight: Patricia Murphy and the Rise and Fall of a Restaurant Empire She lives in New York.
Format:HARDCOVER
Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE
Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE
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