Print is Dead: “In talking about the drawbacks to having the Book Review now appear mostly online, instead of in the actual newspaper, John Freeman from the NBCC states that ‘you can’t bring an online book page into the bath.’ This seems to me even more silly than Atwood’s claim simply because most book reviews aren’t immersive experiences. Instead, they’re created expressly for the purpose of consumption in one sitting. In fact, most reviews are tailor-made for digital delivery since short pieces are easily consumed on handheld screens or laptops. But Freeman seems to think that the fact that most of the Book Review appears online means that it somehow suffers from a ‘lack of portability,’ when it’s actually exactly the other way around. Digital content can be accessed in a myriad of ways, on dozens of devices and gadgets anywhere in the world (not to mention that it can be available forever in archives). Paper is a perishable object bound to a single location that can be easily misplaced, ripped or stained. Whereas content on a website is always there, forever unsullied and pristine, waiting for someone — anyone, anywhere — to touch a few keys and access its knowledge. However, according to Freeman, this is all a drawback. I guess he doesn’t want utility, connectivity, and interactivity; he just wants it to be water proof.”
John Freeman Stuck in 1999
– April 26, 2007Posted in: Uncategorized
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
I gather that it is salutary and decorus to kick John Freeman, but I have to call bullshit on the anti-paper screed. As a storage medium, paper remains unsurpassed (You want forever? Let’s go back to ancient Greece, or even Egypt.) Its technological simplicity, requring only two good eyes to access (or even less, if you use Braille), makes it the single most user-friendly medium availalbe. High-tech is all well and good, but let us not forget that it stands on a sturdy foundation of paper, as civilization itself has always done.
Not that that has much to do with book reviews. Back to your regularly scheduled litblogging …
Fair enough, Mr. FB. I like paper too. Personally, I think there’s room for both paper and online to find a balance so that the future of book reviewing coverage can indeed be saved.
Hang on – even if he likes taking the actual books into the bath, who the hell takes a newspaper into a bath? Does he enjoy reading book reviews against the dark grey of wet newsprint?
Hi Roxy–
As FB’s wife, I can attest that he will read anything in the bath, damage be damned, and is also an avid blog reader. Ambitechsdrous, if you will.
The family luddite is right here.
I hereby move that all further competition be closed off and that “Ambitechsdrous” officially be named Word of the Year.
I read hard copies of online book reviews in the bath all the time.