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
December 29, 2009
Over at if:book, Dan Visel has a nice post on the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, who is probably best known for his proto-hypertext novel Hopscotch — he was perhaps the most radically experimental of the writers of El Boom Latinoamericano. Years ago I read all his major novels, but oddly enough, when I think of Cortázar, what...
December 25, 2009
Alas, the extraordinary Craigie Aitchison died just a few days ago. Posting will be light over the next week or so, as you might imagine. God bless us every one!
December 24, 2009
Ursula K. LeGuin’s letter of resignation from the Authors Guild: 18 December 2009 To Whom it may concern at the Authors Guild: I have been a member of the Authors Guild since 1972. At no time during those thirty-seven years was I able to attend the functions, parties, and so forth offered by the Guild to members who happen to live on...
December 24, 2009
Josef Beery has done well by his iPod Touch: he’s using it as a book reader and only as a book reader, with a beautiful custom-made case. Sweet.
December 23, 2009
Some years ago Cullen Murphy, then editor of The Atlantic, told me in an email exchange that in his view John Wilson is one of the best editors around. And I’ve heard this from some other eminent authorities as well. In case you don’t know, John edits Books and Culture, which is subtitled “A Christian Review” —...
December 23, 2009
Nicholas Lezard looks at a new scientific “formula” that can, it is claimed, identify a given author’s stylistic “fingerprint”: the key, it appears, is “the frequency with which authors use new words.” Lezard is not impressed: For any reasonably well-read person should be able to tell whether a text is by Hardy, Melville or...
December 22, 2009
Candace Sams, having read some negative reviews of her book by Amazon customers, decided to respond by (a) assuming a Lee-Siegel-like pseudonym, (b) blaming her editors, and (c) threatening to report her critics to the FBI. I like it. Consider this a warning, naysayers.
December 21, 2009
December 21, 2009
I read more books this year than I have in quite a while, but I can’t say that anything truly life-changing appeared on my horizon in 2009. I read one indisputably great book this year: Keith Thomas’s The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfillment in Early Modern England. I have written a review of it that I hope will soon appear, but...
December 20, 2009
I am always on a quest — apparently a fruitless one — to consolidate my online life. These days, there are just too darn many options for everything. I have had particular difficulty in figuring out what to do with those stories I come across that I don’t plan to write about but that I don’t want to lose track of. I used...