For a few years now, I have harbored an intense crush on the literary sensation known as Dave Eggers. His book "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" took my perception of literature to a whole new level; "You Shall Know Our Velocity" was a narrative mind trip; "Away We Go" painted a portrait of the perfectly idiosyncratic romance I want in my own life; his role in "The Best American Nonrequired Reading" series both inspires me and restores my faith in the future of reading. Essentially, Eggers speaks to me in a tone I've never heard before--a clever, facetious, yet grounded tone. And I'm in love with it.
During my recent adventures in Cincinnati, I revisited a bookstore my family and I frequented when I was a child-- an independent bookstore I thought for sure would have been run out by Amazon. (
Well, sadly, it almost has.) While there, I stumbled upon Eggers's most recent gift to society: "Art Of McSweeney's." I'm ashamed to admit this, but I have never actually read an issue of the quarterly; as a self-described Eggers devotee I suppose I should remedy that. Anyway, Eggers's introduction to the book moved me. My abhorrence for products such as the Kindle, the iPad, etc. is beyond containable and Eggers's words offer a glimmer of hope that there are others out there like me, shunning technical reading devices in preference of the tried and true book.
Here's what he says:
“This book is being published at a time when there are some rumblings about the dire future of the book, and of the printed book in particular.
There are various rumors that people read less now, and that people will read still less in the future. And that, even if they do read at all, it will be on screens, and not on paper. In fact, there are business people who spend their days crowing about a future where physical books are no more.
McSweeney’s is a small company dedicated to those physical books that purportedly have no future. We spend a good deal of time editing books, and producing books of the highest quality we’re capable of, in the hopes that in doing so, we’ll keep people mindful of the pleasures of the book-as-object. We believe, in fact, that the attention paid to the book-as-object has a role in ensuring the survival of the words within that book’s covers."
-McSweeney's various designs.
2 comments:
i agree, i hate kindles and other electronic readers as well. i already hate reading things on computer screens . i have to print everything out in order to read it, why would i want to read a whole novel now?
kathleen got a kindle for xmas and loves it. i'm indifferent, but personally prefer the real thing. my theory though is that even if local, independent bookstores or printed books go away for a while, they'll still come back. people will eventually grow nostalgic and there will be a renaissance--everything old will be new again. it's the inevitable cycle of human cultural history!
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