Twilight of the Books - essay from the New Yorker, hardly news to textophiliacs
Not just about the decline of reading and profound effects of same - kinds of alphabets and history of reading - what happens neurologically and cognitively when we read - cultural implications - orality / literacy interfaces.
- Book Crossing
- Shelfari
- Book Clubs, a comprehensive guide to discount book clubs and reading groups
- New York Times' online forum & moderated Reading Group Every month, the Reading Group discusses a book chosen by a vote from the readers. The authors often drop by to answer readers' questions. This list includes recent book choices, with links to the discussions and book reviews.
Great Adaptations, NYT Times essay by Sophie Gee. "Instead of dumbing down the classics, mass-market popularizations sometimes make them even better." Gee writes:
Mass-market adaptations make Great Books go bad. Or so conventional wisdom would have it. But every so often, plundering and pillaging a canonical text for the sake of entertainment gives it the kiss of life. Take "Beowulf" and "Paradise Lost." The unpalatable truth is that both originals are now virtually unreadable.Beowulf
"Beowulf" is written in Old English, an inflected Germanic tongue that looks a lot less like our language than one would hope. As for Milton's epic ....[e]ven Samuel Johnson, writing 100 years after Milton, said: "'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is." Now, modern popularizers have come to the rescue, with striking commercial success. Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary's film version of "Beowulf" has taken in more than $180 million worldwide since its opening in November. "His Dark Materials," Philip Pullman's trilogy inspired by "Paradise Lost," has sold 15 million copies worldwide, while the film version of the first volume, "The Golden Compass," has earned more than $150 million.
Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline in Time Spent Reading
If not reading... then what?
Pew Internet is back with one of their reports on the habits of internet users; this one shows that in 2007, 48% of internet users visited video sharing sites such as YouTube, and the traffic to these sites has doubled on a typical day. For comparison, in December 2006, only 33% of internet users said they visited video sharing sites.
This report is based on a survey of 2054 American adults. Interestingly enough, the number of women who started to frequent online video sites has risen more than the number of men. In 2006, 40% of men said they visited online video sharing sites; in 2007, this percentage rose to 53%. Only 27% of women included in the study in 2006 said they visited online video sites, but the percentage rose to 43%, which is a 59% increase. As far as age, education and social status go, numbers aren't very different, except for the fact that the youngest group, aged 18-29, was already visiting video sites very frequently in 2006, so the increase in this group wasn't drastic: from 55% to 70%.
The numbers look good for YouTube and the competition, but there's a lot more room for growth; half of Americans who use the internet aren't watching videos online. This means that there are some people in the country that aren't slacking at work watching funny videos all day, and this, obviously, needs to change.
Janus Array Redux
If 2007 passed you by and you can't help wondering where all the trivia went, the BBC has an answer. It's compiled a list of 100 things it didn't know last year—little squibs of inconvenient, peculiar, or droll factoids, perfect for whiling away the better part of a drowsy workday or fortifying your dinner-party discourse. Here are a few of my favorites:
Brazil nuts are seeds encased in an outer shell that weighs more than 1kg.
Sleeping on the job is tolerated in Japanese work culture, as long as you remain upright and obey certain other rules. It's called inemuri.
Only about half of China's population can speak the national language, Mandarin.
Eight Surprises for 2008: Will China finally lose its luster? Will the global economy stumble or soar? Here are some predictions for 2008
and obviously not from the Globalist...
2007: The Year in Cats (I kid you not)
Art Knowledge News - articles, SUPER art links sections that will take you on virtual tours of world art museums... and more. I'll be adding it to our list of blog links (no, I am neither royalty nor have a tapeworm but do consider links here as much yours as mine)
Alan B. and Brian Comb's Shaggy Dog Story Archive is a fantastic website that has been around for a long time and has over 2,000 shaggy dogs, feghoots, yarns, and groaners. Some quibble over how a feghoot differs from a shaggy dog, but these are basically short stories with atrocious pun or really bad punchline (hence "groaner" - the listener invariably groan when they hear the ending!). Most of them have been around, like, forever . Chances are you've heard of some of 'em but didn't know what they're called.
What's with the title "Tarzan's Tripes Forever"? Well, here's the story (I warn you, it's a groaner - but it illustrates what a feghoot is):
Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, was innocently leaping from tree to tree one fine day, when a band of crazed cannibals ambushed and killed him. They devoured him almost immediately, except for the lining of his stomach which they stretched over a hollow log to make a bongo drum, and gave it to the son of the chief cannibal.
The boy was delighted with his new drum and played it constantly for weeks. Until one day, he came crying to his father the chief. "Daddy," he whimpered, "my bongo drum rotted away."
"Son," replied the chief, "you can't play 'Tarzan's Tripe Forever.'" (from NetHistory, which also has a few shaggy dogs)
Get it? I warned you it was a groaner!
If you haven't seen it before, or haven't visited it for a while, it's worth a visit to check out new stories!
Enjoy!
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