Who needs books? - Lynn Coady

9781772121247

Oops!

Unfortunately it looks like someone took the last one.

Sign up to the musicMagpieStore to be the first to hear about the latest offers, competitions and product information!

Sign up now
Title
Who needs books? - reading in the digital age
Author
Lynn Coady
format
Paperback / softback
Publisher
University of Alberta Press
Language
English
UK Publication Date
20160307

"We look around and feel as if book culture as we know it is crumbling to dust, but there's one important thing to keep in mind: as we know it." What happens if we separate the idea of "the book" from the experience it has traditionally provided? Lynn Coady challenges booklovers addicted to the physical book to confront their darkest fears about the digital world and the future of reading. Is the all-pervasive internet turning readers into web-surfing automatons and books themselves into museum pieces? The bogeyman of technological change has haunted humans ever since Plato warned about the dangers of the written word, and every generation is convinced its youth will bring about the end of civilization. In Who Needs Books?, Coady suggests that, even though digital advances have long been associated with the erosion of literacy, recent technologies have not debased our culture as much as they have simply changed the way we read.

We are Rated Excellent on Trustpilot
Here's what you say about us...

Lynn Coady is an award-wining author and journalist. Her first novel, Strange Heaven, was nominated for the Governor General's Award, and in 2011, her novel The Antagonist was shortlisted for the prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize, an award she won in 2013 for her short story collection Hellgoing. Coady lives in Toronto, where she writes for television.

"[Coady] digs into the recurring social panic that new technology is making us stupid, lazy and unable to appreciate our established cultural forms.... Starting with a Sesame Street anecdote and carrying on through Planet of the Apes and 50 Shades of Grey references, she systematically dismantles the common arguments that nobody is reading anymore and our literary culture is dying." Bruce Cinnamon, Vue Weekly, June 9-15, 2016

"...despite popular perceptions to the contrary, says Coady, statistics indicate that overall readership is up in many demographics today. Fears about the end of reading are attributable more to generational anxieties than to reality... Ultimately Coady's argument is a reassuring dismantling of the imminent book apocalypse. Odds are, if you've read this far, you'll enjoy finding out the answer to Who Needs Books?" Andrew Guilbert, Alberta Views, March 2017

"[Creative writer Lynn Coady] argues for the relevance of books
as repositories and vehicles for transmitting stories, for encouraging imaginative and critical thought, and for creating human connections. Coady reminisces over the rituals surrounding book reading and its immediate gratification that are not elitist, but rather universal. Her argument thus focuses ultimately on
the sense of immersion that a good story can give a reader." - Lourdes Arciniega, Canadian Literature, Autumn/Winter 2016

#7 on the Edmonton Journal's Non-fiction Bestsellers list for the week of April 15, 2016 The Edmonton Journal.

Type
BOOK
Edition
First edition
Keyword Index
Books and reading - Technological innovations - Social aspects.|Electronic books - Social aspects.
Country of Publication
Alberta
Number of Pages
xvii, 49

FREE Delivery on all Orders!