"Between the intellectual guardrails set by our genetic code, the road is wide, and we hold the steering wheel. Through what we do and how we do it--moment by moment, day by day, consciously or unconsciously--we alter the chemical flows in our synapses and change our brains."~Nicholas Carr
"We must always be on the lookout for perverse dynamic processes which carry even good things to excess. It is precisely these excesses which become the most evil things...The devil, after all, is a fallen angel."~Kenneth E. Boulding
"We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter, our tools shape us."~Marshall McLuhan
"IT'S ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE!"~ Victor Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
Hello Book Mavens,
This month's selection has been a real eye-opener for this reader, and I suspect that it will have made quite an impression on most, if not all of you as well. Nothing could be of more import to those as deeply invested in the benefits and pleasures of reading as we are. So, when I chanced upon the original article in the Atlantic that gave rise to the expanded book that I chose for this month, I greedily devoured it. Carr's book, at least for me, has filled out a chilling picture that may bode ill for the future prospects of book culture.
As I read, fascinated with the cultural shifts described by the author, and the startling results of many scientific experiments backing up his claims, I felt the same concern that I experienced many years ago when the first e-readers were coming onto the scene. Now, having been given an e-reader as a gift a few years back (I doubt I would ever have bought one for myself), I sense the same foreboding described by Carr as sitting on the cusp of a tectonic paradigm shift in culture. As the author described it near the beginning of his book, "My life, like the lives of most Baby Boomers and Generation X'ers, has unfolded like a two-act play. It opened with Analogue Youth and then, after a quick but thorough shuffling of props, it entered Digital Adulthood."
I have a feeling that our discussion on Tuesday night August 26, at the home of Jay and Jessica Noble, will be as lively a conversation as we've had all year. In case you haven't gotten the e-mails about the meeting re-location, the Nobles live at 229 Bridgers Hill Rd, Longview. We look forward to seeing you all there.
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