I got a wonderful surprise Solstice gift of the lost art of reading: why books matter in a distracted time by David Ulin the ever generous Richard. By the same title have Ulin's 2009 Los Angeles time article caught. The book is an extension to the article and the book is very good.
Before reading the book I think that its a rant against technology and a paean to the glory of books with many whining it about why no one reads wanted. This book is not the case. Instead this is a thoughtful consideration of the interaction of books and technology and how technology is a good thing and a bad thing for books and read life.
Ulin is a book critic for the LA Times, it's his job and books read report. But when he sits down to read for pleasure he discovered, one day that he was unable to sink into a book and lose length of time and the world as it used to be able to do. He held his reading to check his email, view news feeds, turn on the TV stop. Its concern about on top of things to keep and do not miss, the stay in our 24 / 7 on the world was always in the way of reading focused and maintained. But Ulin stopped to think - no time! -until one day when his 15 year old son, who was reading and aversion, the Great Gatsby in school, told him literature, was dead.
Think it would be to help son with his reading and what is a great book Gatsby began to prove it, Ulin read that evening to find out that a couple of hours should be enough to catch up, where was his son in the book. It is then it had become reading for a few hours non-stop hits home how difficult.
But Ulin is against technology. Even he admits that sometimes if it reads well, something to the clarification or a different perspective can see. Technology can enhance our reading experience. He even has a Kindle, but not on it much by the sound of it read. No matter, really. He thinks, hopes, Ereaders could possibly turn more people into regular readers.
But at the same time that technology and our networked world can improve the reading experience, it also disabled it. It draws our attention away from books, not give us time to think, holds a thought, an officer of step us back from deep capture with an idea. Ulin writes:
And yet, we now live in a culture where the big jump every minute forward, where time and context so shortened grown, that even fear quickly took enough us. How to stop we when we need to know everything in an instant? Like brooding we, when we are continually asked respond? As we delve into something (an idea, an emotion, a decision) if we are no longer willing, to give us the room?
What I like so much about this book that Ulin have no answer to one of the many questions, he asks. He deals with possibilities and again brings it to himself because he is involved in the problem. It's not "People out there" technology or anything in particular, that is the source of our go go go world. Rather, it is a way of being in the world, the we us in getting without much attention have and now we begin to lift our heads and question me what the hell would get as we here? And where is here, exactly?
The a conclusion, Ulin arrived that read, perhaps more importantly, is more important than ever had. Read, is our 24/7 world
an act of resistance in a landscape of distraction, a matter of commitment in a society which seems to want to solve nothing more than for us. It combines at the deepest levels; It is slow, rather than fast. In other words, its beauty and its challenge: in a culture of instant information it requires us to us even pace. To read this idea of slow meaning? Fundamentally, it returns most us to a billing time. We have no choice but in the middle of a book, be patient, let every thing in his moment to the narrative prevail. Moreover, we are all reminded, we savor - have this moment, this scene in this line. We again the world by withdrawing from it just a little, by jumping back from the noise, the turmoil to our reflections in a different spirit to discover. As we let both do, we combine a broader conversation by us to overcome and be expanded.
Even knowing that make this easier for Ulin to read it. He admits to the end but he has still have difficulty keeping it anyway.
The thoughtfulness of the book is what I liked best. Ulin needs any kind of moral high road but explains pleaded guilty of and tries to find out, what is the devil pulled me, made me like the guy. While I no, covered in a book having troubles, I was able to all relate too well. There are times, when I try to read I'm distracted e-Mail, Twitter, blogs, computer games, all seem more interesting than the book.
Today I saw the twilight zone episode time enough at last in the world is destroyed by a nuclear war and survived the bookworm because he read in the bank vault on his lunch break. He kills almost in despair, but he finds the remains of a library and it is giddy with excitement, because he has now all the time he ever want to read. It is of course the twilight zone, so that things work quite as planned. I suppose what matters is somehow find a balance between lost in the world and in a book. There is no balance for all, we all have to find what works for us and it may not be easy, but we must definitely continue reading.
Avid reader and Halden books and soon librarian.
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