06/17/2019
Price (How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain ), a Rutgers English professor and the founding director of the Rutgers Book Initiative, combines a lighthearted romp through literary history with a serious intent: to argue that the rise of e-texts is not the radical change often claimed. In fact, Price argues, change is the norm in print history: the world moved from papyrus to parchment to paper, and from scrolls to codices to books, while books themselves have changed from giant medieval compilations of parchment chained in place, to early-20th-century pocketbooks printed on onionskin. Price notes that with the advent of e-texts, physical books have a newly elevated status based in nostalgia for a pre-electronic era—and are increasingly employed as therapy, their purpose displaced from the joy of reading to self-improvement. Price’s factual tidbits are entertaining: for example, the first vegetarian cookbook was, ironically, bound with and printed on animal skins. However, her penchant for labored analogies—“Print is to digital as Madonna is to whore”—will strain even the most forgiving reader’s patience. Nevertheless, Price provides welcome comfort that the beloved book is in good shape, regardless of the form it ultimately takes. (Aug.)
"Price's book-unlike other examples of what she calls 'autobibliography'-is funny and hopeful, rather than dour and pious...What We Talk About When We Talk About Books is an enjoyable tour, full of surprising byways into historical arcana."—Jennifer Szalai, New York Times Dan Chiasson, New Yorker Wall Street Journal Booklist What We Talk About When We Talk About Books , they were old news. The book has survived numerous death sentences in the past, and this time, as before, it's been the occasion to reinvent old practices of reading. What the Victorians called "furniture books" continue to adorn coffee tables and the Ikea shelves widened to accommodate them. People still hold books in their laps on couches and in coaches (enjoying the "library atmosphere" of Amtrak quiet cars). Self-help books have their roots the "bibliotherapy" proposed a century ago. It is still a very bookish world that we inhabit, and I know of no guide to it more witty and engaging than Leah Price, whose insights, erudition, and apercus had me dog-earing every other page."—Geoff Nunberg, resident linguist , NPR's Fresh Air What We Talk About When We Talk About Books offers no nostalgia for a more tranquil reading past but rather a hopeful glimpse into an essential reading future."—BookPage Shelf Awareness Publishers Weekly What We Talk About When We Talk About Books not only does its talking in original ways but also makes us think intensely about what books are."—Literary Review Kirkus Pittsburgh Post-Gazette What We Talk About When We Talk About Books is a rags to paper to Amazon Kindle bookshelf of delight and instruction, as entertaining as it is illuminating."—Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States Neel Mukherjee, Man Booker Prize-finalist author of The Lives of Others and A State of Freedom William H. Sherman, Director, Warburg Institute, University of London What We Talk About When We Talk About Books is part history, part social commentary, part memoir, and fully engaging. Leah Price pithily assesses the uses of books past and present, and upends assumptions about the future of books in a digital age. Her contagious delight in books makes this book a delight."—Maya Jasanoff, author of The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World Keith Houston , author of The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time
2019-05-26
It wasn't long ago, writes Rutgers Book Initiative founding director Price (How To Do Things With Books in Victorian Britain , 2012, etc.), that writers such as Sven Birkerts and Robert Coover were remarking, and sometimes lamenting, the supposed decline of the book in favor of other technologies—the computer, the e-reader, etc. In fact, reading physical books is on the rise, and in December 2018, holiday shoppers found several popular titles on back order for "that most old-fashioned of crises: a paper shortage." The widespread availability of digital devices doesn't seem to have put much of a dent in the market for physical books, though new technologies have certainly affected reading in the past—most notably, Price archly observes, TV. What has really cut into reading time, she adds, is the in-between time we used to devote to reading books and newspapers, the time spent on bus-stop benches or commuter trains, time now so often given to navigating the many iterations of social media. Books as objects seem safe, then, though mysteries still surround them: Those data crunchers who use electronic tools to see what books people are looking at most still can't answer why we're looking at them. As Price writes, in a nice turn, "no matter how many keystrokes you track and blinks you time, others' reading remains as hard to peer into as others' hearts." The essays suggest more than form a single coherent argument about the book today, but Price's ideas that books are a communal thing and that reading them, in at least one sense, is a profoundly social act are pleasing even if libraries are now different from our childhood memories and if those books come in many forms besides between covers.
Readers who enjoy books about books will find much to like here.
Elisabeth Rodgers narrates this audiobook eloquently, paying attention to the author’s encyclopedic knowledge of her subject. Her tone, style, and pace suit this thoughtful work’s wide-ranging content. The author, a professor of the history of the book, leads the listener on a world tour of this iconic object, which she convincingly argues was the original mass-marketed product, and shows its iterations from handcrafted volume to ebook as it mirrored technological innovations. Price shares entertaining anecdotes—Hemingway’s copy of ULYSSES looks unread—and revealing details: Japanese people read on smartphones, the French on computers, Americans on Kindles. Books persist and evolve, as do libraries, bookstores, and places we read. This audiobook overflows with insights. Anyone who loves to listen to and/or read books will enjoy this revelatory audiobook. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2019 - AudioFile
Elisabeth Rodgers narrates this audiobook eloquently, paying attention to the author’s encyclopedic knowledge of her subject. Her tone, style, and pace suit this thoughtful work’s wide-ranging content. The author, a professor of the history of the book, leads the listener on a world tour of this iconic object, which she convincingly argues was the original mass-marketed product, and shows its iterations from handcrafted volume to ebook as it mirrored technological innovations. Price shares entertaining anecdotes—Hemingway’s copy of ULYSSES looks unread—and revealing details: Japanese people read on smartphones, the French on computers, Americans on Kindles. Books persist and evolve, as do libraries, bookstores, and places we read. This audiobook overflows with insights. Anyone who loves to listen to and/or read books will enjoy this revelatory audiobook. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2019 - AudioFile
