A very important new study on students’ differential reading of screens versus books is out in the Journal of Literary and Linguistic Computing. A summary of some of the article’s findings: Connection with characters on screen does not seem as deep because concentration is not achieved in the same way. …
Faux-linen is out. Modern industrial is in. Imaginary bookshelves are out, too. The big news at Apple this past week was the ouster of Scott Forstall, one of the chief designers for their mobile technologies. The even bigger news (for readers) is what this will mean for interface design. Forstall’s …
It seems like this is going to be one of those debates that will be rehearsed over and over again, but here’s a quick response to the scuffle caused by the recent LA Review of Books piece on “literature is not data.” The general resistance to electronic reading (aka digital humanities) …
I was taking notes in my notebook this weekend when I realized it had a pocket in the back. It reminded me of the centuries-old tradition of books as containers. Unlike e-books that keep things out, books are things that hold things (notes, eye-glasses, dried plants, records, even flies for …
I’m going to sign off for the summer — and get to my summer reading — with an image of my favorite new reading project: Tatsuya Narita’s Tenkipan, which uses an RSS feed to print out the weather on your morning toast. The latest in ubiquitous reading.
“You very rarely get a glimpse into the reader’s mind,” David Levithan of Scholastic Books says. “With a printed book, there’s no such thing as an analytic. You can’t tell which pages are dog-eared.” A new piece at the Wall Street Journal by Alexandra Alter about how publishers are finally getting …
A neat piece in the Chicago Tribune by Chris Borelli on the pleasures of reading on public transit. As Borelli writes, one reason for this is the way reading on trains, planes, buses, and subways allows you to be alone in public. There is something deeply pleasurable about being immersed …
A nice example of when electronic reading begins to infect the theater, too. Sarah Illiatovitch-Goldman has written a new play, Pieces, currently being performed in Toronto that concerns a husband, wife, and the surprise visit of a former lover. The time-frame moves back and forth between the present and the past, …
My son’s school is holding its annual Lecturothon today, where every student in the school has to read for five straight hours (I’m guessing there are breaks). They use it to raise money and to make a statement about the value of sustained reading. He brings a sleeping bag, a …
I spent this Sunday at an Easter service and was thinking about the relationship between books and belief. My daughter pointed at someone from the choir and asked if he was an angel. I said no. She asked how he knew all the words to the service. I said that …