Description
Book Synopsis"We look around and feel as if book culture as we know it is crumbling to dust, but there's one important thing to keep in mind: as we know it." What happens if we separate the idea of "the book" from the experience it has traditionally provided? Lynn Coady challenges booklovers addicted to the physical book to confront their darkest fears about the digital world and the future of reading. Is the all-pervasive internet turning readers into web-surfing automatons and books themselves into museum pieces? The bogeyman of technological change has haunted humans ever since Plato warned about the dangers of the written word, and every generation is convinced its youth will bring about the end of civilization. In Who Needs Books?, Coady suggests that, even though digital advances have long been associated with the erosion of literacy, recent technologies have not debased our culture as much as they have simply changed the way we read.
Trade Review#7 on the Edmonton Journal's Non-fiction Bestsellers list for the week of April 15, 2016 The Edmonton Journal. "[Coady] digs into the recurring social panic that new technology is making us stupid, lazy and unable to appreciate our established cultural forms... Starting with a Sesame Street anecdote and carrying on through Planet of the Apes and 50 Shades of Grey references, she systematically dismantles the common arguments that nobody is reading anymore and our literary culture is dying." Bruce Cinnamon, Vue Weekly, June 9-15, 2016
Table of ContentsForeword Introduction The Monster at the End of this Book Good Night, Sweet Prince (of Art Forms) You Maniacs! But What about the Children? The End of Civilization as We Know It Technoserfs We Happy Few
