Category Archives: Book culture

The year of the e-reader? Probably not.

Will this, finally, be the year when e-readers take off? I don’t think so — yet there are two interesting developments worth paying attention to.

First, I’m quite interested in the prototype e-reader about to be released by Silicon Valley start-up Plastic Logic. Not only does it have many of the features I’ve been longing for, on 6 December 2009, the U.K. Independent reported that Plastic Logic’s “Que” e-reader may help the struggling newspaper industry:

“The Que, an A4 sheet of plastic no heavier than a magazine, is powered by electronic circuitry using plastic as a base rather than traditional silicone. This makes for a much lighter, more robust product that is also easier to make than other e-readers…. The screen displays newspapers and magazines in the same format as on the [printed paper] page…. Many analysts believe the Que could benefit the struggling newspaper industry as it strives to find ways of charging for content.” [But the authoritative blog Media Bistro disagrees, saying e-readers will not save newspapers.]

This video shows a prototype of the Que, and this quick look is almost enough to make me excited. But one problem is already obvious:– Plastic Logic refuses to mention price and they’re aiming it at “business users,” which means the Que will probably be too expensive for ordinary mortals like me. However, they supposedly plan to mass-market the Que through Barnes and Noble stores, meaning that they may eventually be aiming for a more reasonable price.

Second, Sony just released its latest and best e-reader, the PRS 900 “Daily Edition.” Continue reading →

The bean counters win again

Mr. Crankypants read today that Neilsen Business Media has made the decision to close Kirkus Reviews, according to the Kirkus Reviews web site. No doubt librarians everywhere will mourn its death, as Kirkus Reviews has long been a source of excellent, honest book reviews; as for Mr. Crankypants, he mourns the loss of a motherlode of snark.

So why did Nielsen kill Kirkus? The L.A. Times reported that Nielsen purchased Kirkus Reviews as part of a trade publication group that included ten periodic; yet Nielsen sold most of the other titles, including Billboard and (gag) Brandweek. Says the L.A. Times, “It was unclear why a buyer had not been found for Editor and Publisher [a trade journal covering newspapers] and Kirkus. A Nielsen Business Media company spokesman said they were ‘no longer aligned with our strategy’.”

Nielsen killed Kirkus because the beancounters won again: short-term profits and laziness once again triumphed over intellectual and cultural importance.

Originally found on.

Going what?

According to the BBC Web site, Sarah Palin has released a memoir titled Going Rouge. Then I read a blog post by Jim Macdonald at Making Light that pointed out a typographical error on the CNN Web site, which he quoted as follows: “In excerpts of her new book ‘Going Rouge: An American Life’ that we….”

I stopped and read it again. That’s not a typo, that’s just the title of the book, I said to myself. Finally it sunk in: I had read the title wrong. Sarah Palin, who sees herself as a rogue who uses rouge, titled her book Going Rogue. But she is no more of a rogue than Winnie the Pooh, who is cute and cuddly and a bear of little brain. Whereas Sarah Palin obviously does use rouge. And the phrase “going rogue” has an odd sort of sound to it; it doesn’t sound like something an American speaker of English would ordinarily say. No wonder I made the mistake.

It’s too bad she gave the book that title; it will inevitably be misread; there is already a parody version of the book which is indeed titled Going Rouge. Unfortunately, this little incident makes me want to compare Sarah Palin to another hapless vice presidential type: Dan Quayle. Which actually makes me feel bad.

Petty writers are not to be despised

Samuel Johnson, that 18th century English writer better known today by his reputation rather than by his works, published The Rambler, a twice-weekly periodical, from 1750 to 1752. I think of The Rambler as a sort of 18th century blog: Johnson took on subjects that others had already written about, expressed firm opinions that had been heard before, and often wrote about matters that no one would care about a year later.

In the issue from 6 August 1751 (no. 145), Johnson apologized for those writers who write for ephemeral periodicals. “These papers of the day, the Ephemera of learning, have uses more adequate to the purposes of common life, than more pompous and durable volumes,” said Johnson. We have little need to know what happened in ancient kingdoms, about which we expect little or nothing; we have a real need to know about events that shape our lives today. “If it be pleasing to hear of the preferment and dismission of statesmen, the birth of heirs, and the marriage of beauties,” he says, “the humble author of journals and gazettes must be considered as a liberal dispenser of beneficial knowledge.” And so we should not despise such petty writers, even though what they write will be forgotten tomorrow.

Today’s petty writers can be found on the Internet. You can read blogs about cats who are trying to lose weight. You can read innumerable blogs about babies, reporting when baby gets its first tooth, when baby takes its first step, when baby vomits for the first time. You can read a seemingly infinite number of political blogs which tend to report on what other political blogs have said, often using vituperative language and relying on ad hominem attacks as their primary rhetorical strategy. I can enjoy reading blogs about overweight cats. I don’t mind reading blogs about babies that I know. I won’t read political blogs myself, but I can understand why people are fascinated by them. I’d be willing to call blogs generous dispensers of mildly beneficial knowledge, if I can qualify that by adding that they can be too generous in their dispensing. And if I think of Twitter, Facebook, and other popular social media as micro-blogging, then these newer social media are even more generous in dispensing their ephemeral writings. In the last half minute, dozens of petty writers have been posting such ephemera statements as “Sad story at fort hood. God save the world.” and “grey’s anatomy, you make me cry everytime. and i dont cry over television shows!” to Twitter.

What would Samuel Johnson make of blogs and Twitter? Would he have despised the petty writer who just wrote “i’m saying doe, if Britney can have 100million$ music career basically doing what kim just did. why cant kim?? lol” in a tweet to Twitter? Or would Johnson have found some fleeting value even in that? If I’m honest with myself I often find such ephemera to be more vigorously written and more entertaining (in the short run, at least) than Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel. And I don’t even know who “kim” is.

Bookstore

It’s about a twenty or thirty minutes walk from our house to downtown Burlingame. Instead of going into the city tonight, I decided to walk over to Burlingame. I walked past the stores with expensive women’s clothing, past the Apple store, past Pottery Barn and Banana Republic, finding with unerring instinct the local independent bookstore.

I wandered down to the current events section, which was right next to the children’s section. Near me, a man was standing next to a boy who was about 8 years old.

“Dad, look at this book,” said the boy.

The man mumbled a reply. He was looking at something else.

“But Dad,” said the boy with more urgency in his voice, “look at this book.”

“What?” said the man.

“This book,” said the boy, showing it to his father. “It has Legos with the book.” His voice sounded slightly awestruck: a book with Legos!

“Cool,” said the father, with some enthusiasm, which he spoiled by immediately turning to call to his wife across the store, “Did you see the children’s section? They have a good children’s section here.”

I wandered over to the mystery books. There were two other children behind me looking at books. A man, presumably their father, walked over, and said, “OK, it’s time for the —— family to go now.” There was just the slightest hint of uncertainty in his voice.

The children ignored him.

“C’mon, guys, let’s please put the books back now,” said the tentative father.

The children ignored him.

“Don’t you guys want to get ice cream?” he said.

“Ice cream?” they cried.

“Yeah!” he said, putting their books back on the shelf for them.

I suddenly noticed that there was one other solo adult in the bookstore; everyone else appeared to be part of a family of adults and children. I went over to the science fiction books, which again was near the big children’s section. Yet another parent was standing in the children’s section talking to a child.

“Put the book back,” said the parent.

“WAAH!” screamed the child.

“OK, we’ll buy the book,” said the parent to stop the child from crying. This reminded me of when I visited a toy shop in a well-to-do white suburb for ten years, where someone I know was the manager. Behind the cash register, the staff had posted a sign that read, “Unattended children will be sold into slavery.”

Unusually for me, I didn’t buy anything at this bookstore.

Summer evening

It was hot today. The weather station at San Francisco Airport recorded a high of 91 degrees Fahrenheit, and I’d bet it hit 95 degrees at our house. About the middle of the afternoon I saw one of our downstairs neighbors. We both agreed it was hot. She said it was so hot she was having a hard time staying focused on doing housework. I admitted that the heat had gotten to me and I had given up on housework.

Since I wasn’t getting any housework done, I decided I wouldn’t stay around the house. I got on the train, transferred to BART at the Millbrae station, and headed over to Berkeley. I walked up to Telegraph Ave., then threaded my way through the street-chaos generated by the resident freaks, weirdos, and college students of Telegraph Ave., making my way down to Moe’s and Shakespeare & Co., the two bookstores remaining on the avenue.

I turned into Shakespeare & Co., with its narrow aisles and mis-matched bookcases. As I turned towards the mysteries, a small bearded man stepped backwards and ran into me; I apologized, but he didn’t notice me at all, and continued asking the clerk, “Are these the only chess books you have?” The clerk said, “Yes, they’re all on that shelf.” The small man said, “But what about these here?” The clerk said, “Yes, those there, yes they continue down to that shelf.” I wandered from the mysteries towards the science fiction books. A young woman and her guitar blocked one end of the science fiction aisle. She answered her cell phone: “Hello? … Oh, hi! … I’m here in Shakespeare & Co, you know that used bookstore? … Yeah. I’m looking for something new to read. I was trying to read Kafka, but I didn’t like it, which is strange, because it’s this really well-written book, so now I’m trying to find something else….” I turned the corner into the pocket fiction aisle, and there was a small handwritten sign saying, “Hey, kid, don’t look up here, this is where the adult books are.” Sure enough, in shelves about seven feet off the ground, there were some forgettable mass-market porno paperbacks, back from the days when there was no Internet porn, including an old copy of Emmanuelle that smelled moldy. I eavesdropped on a conversation that the clerk was having with one of the customers; actually, it was more of a monologue, where the clerk analyzed the motivations of the 9/11 bombers, speculated that Osama bin Laden is probably dead by now, or at least in very poor health, and in his pleasing tenor voice gave details of the Jayce Lee Dugard case, including the fact that the alleged abductor, Philip Garrido, had been spouting some kind of crazed religious nonsense on the Berkeley campus when he was confronted by two campus police officers, and that was what led to the discovery of Dugard. This conversation motivated me to move on to the Political Science section, and then to glance through the titles on the True Crime shelves. I heard the customer say to the clerk, “At least she [meaning Dugard] will have a normal life now,” and the clerk responded, “Well, relatively normal, considering what she’s been through. Apparently she considered the guy as some kind of god. And she had two children with him.” I kept browsing for a while longer, but in the end all I bought was a collection of Chinese poetry in translations by David Hinton.

I walked across the street to Moe’s bookstore. The book selection was less entertaining. The people-watching was far less interesting. The only conversation I overheard had to do with Ackermann functions, and frankly I did not understand what the two guys were talking about. But I wound up buying more books, probably because I wasn’t distracted.

The truth about worship services

I am in the middle of reading a biography of James Boswell, famous for his biography of Samuel Johnson; but when I read about Boswell’s London Journal, I got distracted — went out and found a copy, and started to read it. Near the beginning of the Journal, Boswell goes to church one fine Sunday, but is distracted from the sermon by other thoughts:

“Monday 29 November. I breakfasted with Mr. Douglas. I went to St. James Church and heard service and a good sermon on ‘By what means shall a young man learn to order his ways,’ in which the advantages of early piety were well displayed. What a curious, inconsistent thing is the mind of man! In the midst of divine service I was laying plans for having women, and yet I had the most sincere feelings of religion. I imagine my want of belief is the occasion of this, so that I can have all the feeling. I would try to make out a little consistency this way.”

But Boswell is mistaken in thinking that consistency is possible for us human beings. Don’t you think?

Books and libraries

We haven’t completely unpacked yet, but we are mostly done. The bulk of my possessions consists of books, and I have most of my books unpacked and placed into book cases.

By Wednesday, I had gotten most of my professional books into the bookcases in my office at church. On Thursday, I noticed that I started thinking differently: I was thinking about a work-related problem, and I knew part of the answer was to be found in a book that I owned, and I walked over to the shelf and pulled that book out. A week ago, I would not have been able to find that book; and a week ago, I simply ignored that problem.

The theory of distributed cognition suggests that tools contain a measure of accumulated wisdom. A crosscut panel saw, for example, contains accumulated wisdom on one way of cutting wood (whereas a coping saw contains a somewhat different accumulation of wisdom on cutting wood). I used to work for a cabinetmaker, and saws and other tools shape both your body and your mind: using a Western-style crosscut panel saw strengthens certain muscles, and makes your mind think about wood in certain ways; if you then try to use a Japanese-style pull saw, you find that you use different muscles, and you also find that you have to think about wood in a different way.

But it’s not just individual tools which contain distributed cognition. When I worked for the cabinetmaker, over time I came to realize that the layout of his shop also contained accumulated wisdom: the way he organized his workbenches and big machines shaped the way we thought about making things, and shaped our work physically as well. Not only that, but the toolboxes that he carried to job sites were also a form of distributed cognition. Thus, tools which are in themselves a kind of distributed cognition can be assembled in arrangements which are yet another layer of distributed cognition.

A library, whether a personal library or an institution’s library, is a form of distributed cognition that is similar to the cabinetmaker’s shop. An individual book is one form of distributed cognition (obviously); but a library, the way it is arranged, the books that are in it and the books that are not in it, is another form of distributed cognition. I learned how to lay out my personal library both from spending a great deal of time in institutional libraries, as well as from looking at the personal libraries of friends and mentors in my field; another influence on my personal library has been syllabuses from graduate school courses. The Library of Congress cataloguing system and the Dewey Decimal system offer ways to systematically arrange human knowledge (as it is contained in books); and each profession has its own ways of organizing the knowledge essential to that profession. Professionally speaking, I think more clearly when I can get at my professional library.

One of my frustrations with Google Books is that the books within it are poorly organized; Google wants you to browse its online books using its search engine, but search engines contain very little in the way of distributed cognition. Books and libraries are highly evolved and subtle technologies; by comparison, today’s e-books and e-libraries are in many ways crude and clumsy technologies.

Met while traveling

Written Monday, June 22, while on the train; posted Wednesday, June 24, and back-dated.

It’s what they call “community seating” in the dining car — they seat you with other people who come in at about the same time you do. Sure, you can take your food and go eat in your sleeping compartment, but it’s more fun to meet different people.

At dinner, I was seated with a family of three: mom, dad, daughter in mid-teens. They had been touring colleges on the East Coast, and were headed to Denver to visit colleges in that area. Upon finding out that I was from the Boston area, the dad turned to me and asked what I thought about Harvard College. I told him that I thought they were overpriced for what you got, unless all you wanted was the name on your diploma. “But,” I said, turning to the daughter, “it depends on what your filed is.”

“English,” she said, “writing, really.” So I asked what kind of writing she was interested in, and she said journalism and creative non-fiction. And then I asked what writers she liked, and she named Hunter S. Thompson and….

“Oh, New Journalism, huh?” I said.

“Yes,” she said, looking surprised that I knew what she was talking about.

So I told her that I love New Journalism, and besides my spouse, Carol, is a journalist, and my older sister has an MFA in creative writing, so like it or not I would know something about it. I told that Carol went to Newhouse School at Syracuse, and got good training in journalism; but what they told Carol at Newhosue was that you don’t need a degree in journalism, you mostly just need to write. So maybe it wasn’t so important which school she went to; maybe she should just find a college in New York City simply because it is the literary center of the United States. She had already thought about that.

Then the conversation meandered all over the place, and it turned out that the daughter had talked her parents into taking a side trip to drive past Woody Creek, where Hunter Thompson lived the last half of his life. Her parents didn’t quite roll their eyes, but obviously didn’t understand her passion. I love some of Thompson’s writing, especially Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, so I was far more sympathetic.

“Sounds like a good trip,” I said to her. “Literary pilgrimage is a venerable tradition. In fact, now that you mention it, going to Woody Creek a literary pilgrimage I should make.”

As we finished desert, I couldn’t resist asking her, “So how many words a day do you write?” “Well,” she said, and then admitted that she didn’t write every day. But wasn’t she was writing letters about her trip to a friend back home, which counts as writing, and writing in her journal? I said she should post those letters on a blog. She said that maybe she might do that some day.