Every
few years, I’ve noticed, we get slammed with some article or other about how
we’re moving into a kind of post-literate society, where books become obsolete
and we’re all going to get our learning in capsule form or whatever. But I love
my books, and I’m not giving them up without a fight. I grew up a bookish
little one, preferring to spend my days devouring The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe rather than play house or
whatever the other kids were up to. Since then, I’ve worked as a librarian, a
conservator, a writer, and a book artist (printing and binding books by hand).
Even working here at Nerve has caused me considerable anxiety, as it’s meant
swapping my ink and paper comforts for the cold, tech-y embrace of the
internets. Imagine my abject horror when Nerve editor Will Doig passed along a
book called The
Solitary Vice: Against Reading. I’m pretty sure I gasped audibly.
So
I sat down with author Mikita
Brottman for a quick Q&A about the hidden dangers of books, the joys of
tabloids, and librarian sex appeal.
People
assume that if you're not actually sitting with a book in your lap, you're not
really reading. Whereas most of what people are doing online is reading.
Sending text messages or sitting with a magazine or a comic is reading. There
are all kinds of reading, and I think book-boostering campaigns are a reaction
against these things that compete for our attention. People feel anxious about
the demise of reading, but those anxieties are groundless, and perhaps rooted
in snobbery.
Read
more…
