Commentary on technologies of reading, writing, research, and, generally, knowledge. As these technologies change and develop, what do we lose, what do we gain, what is (fundamentally or trivially) altered? And, not least, what’s fun?
By: Alan Jacobs
April 30, 2010
Michael Norris, “an American publishing expert,” says, “Parents have too much of a role in deciding which books their child is going to read. It is turning children off. They should let them choose.” This is plausible. Let’s look into this some more. First, he argues, reading should never be described with “work...
April 29, 2010
I’m not going to try to summarize this provocative talk by Steven Johnson — just go read it. I am also not going to mention that I have had a few things to say about commonplace books myself. (See what I did there?) But just two comments:1) I think Johnson pushes a point way too far when he runs a Google search for “journalism”...
April 28, 2010
Jennifer McDonald writes about Ander Monson’s Vanishing Point: “This is a book,” Monson writes on his first page. “It is fixed in time, in space, in print, an artifact.” His brain, however, represents “flux, motion, … thinking exploding everywhere.” So he is not satisfied with the book’s limitations, with the way its...
April 27, 2010
April 26, 2010
If you ever suffer from low spirits or melancholy, you might consider the wise advice of Sydney Smith: Get into the shower bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75° or 80°. Short views of human life — not further than dinner or tea. Be as busy as you can. See as much...
April 23, 2010
From Yahoo News: Researchers at the University of Maryland who asked 200 students to give up all media for one full day found that after 24 hours many showed signs of withdrawal, craving and anxiety along with an inability to function well without their media and social links.Susan Moeller, the study’s project director and a...
April 23, 2010
Craig Mod says: Previously, reading was an act of solitude by design, with most residue of the process locked in a book’s physicality. This is no longer true. Why do people say things like this? (I know, I always ask that question. But really: Why do people say things like this?) The overwhelming majority of readers read paper...
April 22, 2010
It’s generally understood that books are read differently in different generations: cultural changes bring themes and images to the forefront that might have been invisible, or wholly subdued, to a previous generation of readers. It took the rise of Romanticism and its associated revolutions to cast Milton’s Satan in a heroic light;...
April 20, 2010
A simple but useful suggestion about e-reading from Russell Jones: There’s a difference between linked information (where links can become obsolete) and embedded information, which is persistent. I’m sure you’ve all had the frustrating experience of clicking on a link only to find that the information is no longer...
April 19, 2010
Ken Auletta writes: Publishers maintain that digital companies don’t understand the creative process of books. A major publisher said of Amazon, “They don’t know how authors think. It’s not in their DNA.” Neither Amazon, Apple, nor Google has experience in recruiting, nurturing, editing, and marketing writers. The...