Comments on: From the NY Times Book Review (edited)

By: ER

ER — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 00:15:18 +0000

Besides, the new Zeitgeist IS the bomb-thrower. And who has the time to read books anyway? All our spare time these days is spent managing our labor-saving devices and monitoring our data feeds.

Its a sign of the times. When I lived in Silly Valley (30 years ago!)I used to ride my 10-speed to Printer’s, Inc. in Palo Alto every weekend and read the New York Times Review of Books cover to cover. I didn’t have to read any of the originals, I could access directly the societal impact new literature was having without having to read any of it myself. There it was, pre-digested and analyzed for me. Everybody thought I was the most well-read guy in town.

The last two new books I actually read were Piketty’s Capital and Hayes’ The Twilight of the Elites–right after they were published. Now I don’t have to read anything, I just wait til NPR interviews the author and look it up on Google.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 23:28:26 +0000

As noted, I asked ER to reduce the size of the excerpt to something less than all of it Katie. It’s still larger than I’m comfortable with, but this horse has already taken a beating. What would be better in the future, I think, would be to synopsize while sprinkling literal quotes for the high points.

As I mentioned in my notice below, ER bringing the review and book to my attention has resulted in me downloading an ebook excerpt to evaluate, and I’m pretty sure I’ll buy the book–looks good so far. I’ll post my own review here later.

One reason I keep mentioning the books I’m reading is that I’d like to be able to discuss them with other people. One thing we can do very well in the long-form discussion format is dig deep into a subject like this, and worry it to death. I think if the Zone ever has a renaissance, it’ll be more in the model of the salon than as a clubhouse of bomb-throwers.