tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10048554.post91689812457711878..comments2023-06-25T08:12:06.640-07:00Comments on tested by research: The Pleasures Of Reading In An Age Of Distraction, By Alan Jacobsallanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04673233312198832937noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10048554.post-65682151835890482062013-03-03T17:02:52.136-08:002013-03-03T17:02:52.136-08:00I read it in late 2011 or early 2012, I think. Jam...I read it in late 2011 or early 2012, I think. James is always entertaining, even if I don't agree with him. I vaguely remember that bit about civil war. I also recalling having written a huge amount of notes, but I don't think I ever posted about the book.allanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04673233312198832937noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10048554.post-26468136173508760932013-03-03T14:05:28.637-08:002013-03-03T14:05:28.637-08:00I'm reading Bill James' 'True Crime...I'm reading Bill James' 'True Crime' right now, which I certainly would never have found without the baseball connection. Not surprisingly coming from James, it is extremely quirky, rather subversive of received opinion and conventional wisdom, and extremely interesting and informative about the USAian legal system.<br /><br />One of the things he claims is that the USA was drifting toward civil war by 1915, war between labor and capital, poor and rich.<br /><br />Not that you will have time with your 2004 on its way.johngoldfinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09322562737172405323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10048554.post-18826375105007013142013-01-20T08:54:08.262-08:002013-01-20T08:54:08.262-08:00You've actually done an extremely good job art...You've actually done an extremely good job articulating the pleasures of this book! You are one of those accidentally sagacious people.<br /><br /><i>Jacobs also includes a few good quotes showing that people in the 17th century felt a similar flood of information (and books to read) as we do today.</i><br /><br />Ding ding ding! I wrote a paper about this. I made a case for the shock of the flood of material from the early decades of printing being more of a cultural shock, relative to what came before it, than the internet was to us. Cross-reference Elizabeth Eisenstein. laura khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10048554.post-10738093197122655292013-01-20T07:27:07.200-08:002013-01-20T07:27:07.200-08:00Great post. I like what Zenslinger says about genr...Great post. I like what Zenslinger says about genre reading, too. But I really don't get making a case for science fiction being "the mainstream literature of the long run" any more than I get Bloom's snobbery. <br /><br />There's miles and miles of mainstream lit that's realistic - not a few writers limping along, not just Roth and Updike and Cormac McCarthy, but hundreds, thousands of writers, zig-zagging all over the map of human experience. Reducing all fiction-that-is-not-sci-fi to one thing called "realism" is a bit ridiculous. <br /><br />Why must one form be ascendant? There's room enough on the shelves and in our minds for the full spectrum. laura khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10048554.post-74747976868219883242013-01-19T08:02:13.254-08:002013-01-19T08:02:13.254-08:00Embracing "genre reading" and the serend...Embracing "genre reading" and the serendipity of the discovery of authors are a some of the gifts of reading I've been aware of recently. This book sounds really cool.<br /><br />Those are all intertwined just in reading this blog. My favorite science-fiction writer is Gene Wolfe, a guy who writes books that are somewhat difficult to digest on the first reading, contain many puzzles, word play, and historical associations. In the shorthand of the language used to describe authors and genres, he's a literary science-fantasy dude.<br /><br />He skewers the idea so prevalent today that serious, praised fiction is contemporary fiction written present-day, real world figures. "The adventurous reader has probably already moved past realism...It is archtypically the story about the college professor who is married to the other college professor." Now, Philip Roth has done some novels about the married college professors. I think he's such a good writer that it doesn't matter what he writes about, it will be pretty good anyway, but it's not an interesting subject. Updike...I haven't read these guys a lot. I think I could probably stand to read them more than I have, but defining it as what a person ought to read seems limited at the least.<br /><br />Wolfe also says that science-fiction is the mainstream of literature in the long run; it's only now the Blooms of the world value contemporary realism so much. From Homer to Dante to Shakespeare, it's mostly genre stuff with some degree of fantastical elements.Zenslingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06040836002694584468noreply@blogger.com