The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age Paperback - 2006
by Sven Birkerts
In this boldly original challenge to the new information technologies--an essential work for anyone who cares about the future of books--Birkerts shows how, in our abrupt, heedless switch from book to screen, we as a society are allowing our inner lives to be diminished.
From the jacket flap
"[A] THOUGHTFUL AND HEARTFELT BOOK...A literary cri de coeur--a lament for literature and everything implicit in it."
--The Washington PostIn our zeal to embrace the wonders of the electronic age, are we sacrificing our literary culture? Renowned critic Sven Birkerts believes the answer is an alarming yes. In The Gutenberg Elegies, he explores the impact of technology on the experience of reading. Drawing on his own passionate, lifelong love of books, Birkerts examines how literature intimately shapes and nourishes the inner life. What does it mean to "hear" a book on audiotape, decipher its words on a screen, or interact with it on CD-ROM? Are books as we know them dead?
At once a celebration of the complex pleasures of reading and a boldly original challenge to the new information technologies, The Gutenberg Elegies is an essential volume for anyone who cares about the past and future of books."[A] wise and humane book....He is telling us, in short, nothing less than what reading means and why it matters."
--The Boston Sunday Globe"Warmly elegiac...A candid and engaging autobiographical account sketches his own almost obsessive trajectory through avid childhood reading....This profoundly reflexive process is skillfully described."
--The New York Times Book Review"Provocative...Compelling...Powerfully conveys why reading matters, why it is both a delight and a necessity."
--The Harvard Review
Details
- Title The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age
- Author Sven Birkerts
- Binding Paperback
- Edition First Edition
- Pages 272
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl, New York
- Date 2006-11-14
- ISBN 9780865479579 / 0865479577
- Weight 0.55 lbs (0.25 kg)
- Dimensions 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 in (20.83 x 13.97 x 2.03 cm)
-
Themes
- Chronological Period: Modern
- Library of Congress subjects Books and reading, Authors and readers
- Library of Congress Catalog Number 2006928235
- Dewey Decimal Code 028.9
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