As one whose shelves were once littered with not-reading, I liked this. From the Chronicle of Higher Education: “The history of reading,” [Leah] Price says, “really has to encompass the history of not reading.” Anyone who has ever displayed a trophy volume on the coffee table knows that people do many things with books besides …
Tag Archive: books
Dec 27 2012
E-readers Aren’t Dying, They’re Entrenched
A new Pew report with all sorts of nifty data on tablets and e-reading suggests that the sales of dedicated e-readers themselves, like Kindles and Nooks, have stalled, and may be headed downward. I think this is interesting, because the common view seems to be that this is due to the popularity and overall utility …
Dec 26 2012
E-books, DRM, and the Problem of “Owning”
An article at Ars Technica asks an interesting question: why is DRM still tolerated on e-books when it’s been killed in regards to music? The reasons given boil down to two things: with the ubiquity of cross-platform apps like Amazon’s Kindle app, folks can already read their DRM-locked books on multiple devices, whereas for music …
Dec 02 2012
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the E-book
I have trouble understanding the panic that much of the culture seems to be experiencing over the rise of e-books at the expense of their dead-tree predecessors. I understand that there are charms and benefits that are unique to the physical codex, and there are few who appreciate those more than I do. But there …
Apr 28 2012
It Looked Like a Toy
I am in the midst of reading James Gleick’s The Information (and I think I’m the last person left who hasn’t), and I was startled by his retelling of the initial reactions to the introduction of the telephone. See if it reminds you of anything. The next year, in England, the chief engineer of the …
Apr 16 2012
Formed by Boredom
This worries me a little (by Toby Litt in Granta): A couple of years ago, I spent three months playing World of Warcraft – partly as research for a short story I was writing, mostly because I became addicted to it. This convinced me of one thing: If the computer games which exist now had existed back in …
Mar 08 2012
Suggesting People into Loving Their Servitude
Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. …
Feb 18 2012
The Age of Wonder: Science as a Means to Emancipation
Richard Holmes’ 2009 tome is aptly titled. It’s a wonder, and it takes an age to read it. Right. I wanted to get that out of the way, as the fact of its lengthiness weighs on me as I consider penning a reaction to its substance. It feels really long. But, as with many efforts, …
Feb 07 2012
Reading is Self-Mastery
D.G. Myers positions reading not as an escape but as a challenge to ourselves: To read an author is to read someone different from ourselves. Reading is not a means of self-affirmation, but of self-denial. Any book that is any good challenges its readers: This is so, isn’t it? Did you know this? Have you considered that? [ … …
Jan 29 2012
My Treatise on Atheists in Politics is Now a Kindle Book
I know what you want. You want a heavily footnoted, yet deliciously readable academic tract on the plight of American atheists in the contemporary political environment. But you don’t want it to be too long — 50 pages or so will be fine, thank you — and you don’t want it to be so tied to …
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