reading
Avatar of the eBook by Javier Candeira
Though some bibliophiles are threatened by the advent of the digital book, I can’t help but love books in all their forms. There are times when I’d rather jump on the subway with a paperback, but there are also times I’m grateful not to have to put down a 2-pound copy of The Count of Monte Cristo just because my bedtime arms have gotten too lazy to keep holding it up.
This roundup is an ecclectic mix of how the digital is changing how and what we read, the environmental impact of digital ereaders, the future form of literature and more. Have any thoughts on the future of reading? Let us know in the comments.
The Evolution and Future of Ereaders
Five Books on Electronic Literature
The Environmental Impact of Ereaders
The Future of Paper Books…and E-readers
Can the Internet Save the Book?
Recommended Read
Wolf, Maryanne. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. New York: Harper Perennial, 2007. [ISBN-13: 978-0-06-093384-5]
The argument that grounds Proust and the Squid is that the human mind isn’t hardwired for reading the way it is for speech. While the average child left in earshot of others’ speech will quickly and spontaneously learn to speak, a child in arm’s reach of writing can only learn to read after years of laborious tuition and study.
While speaking and listening to speech employ areas of the brain that have become recognized as language centers, reading is much more complex, drawing on the same language centers as well as visual regions, occipital, temporal and parietal areas of the brain.
All these parts are necessary to make sense of images, to dissect heard sounds into their constituent syllables, and to connect all this visual, auditory, and linguistic input with conceptual processing that can decode an author’s meaning. Maryanne Wolf argues that each person who has ever learned to read has had to second already existing and unrelated brain regions in the service of reading. To read we must rewire our minds, and the activity of reading itself changes our neural circuitry. Evidence has already shown that each new skill we learn creates new pathways in the brain, so it makes sense that reading would be no different.
Wolf investigates the reading brain by looking at the earliest systems of writing and tracking how these systems have changed in the past 6000 or so years. She discusses the development of logographic writing, syllabary systems, and alphabets. In each case she considers how these written forms were taught to new readers, how they developed over time, and the different parts of the brain readers mobilize to make sense of each of these writing systems. [click to continue…]
Recommended Read
Crystal, David. Txtng: The gr8 db8. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2008. [ISBN-13: 978-0-19-957133-8]
One of the most notable things about texting is the impressive furor that has accompanied its meteoric rise in popularity over the past ten years or so. David Crystal recounts some of the many dire warnings texting has occassioned, quoting John Humphrys, for instance, who writes in the Daily Mail online that texters are:
vandals who are doing to our language what Gengis Khan did to his neighbours eight hundred years ago. They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary. And they must be stopped.
Hyperbole aside, people are understandably worried about what this new form of communication and orthography might mean for the future of our language. There’s no question that past changes in genres and media—from sonnets to hip-hop lyrics, from scrolls to eBooks—have had real and lasting consequences for language. It’s only sensible to wonder how texting might change us. And for those of you who, unlike John Humphrys, are still making up your minds about texting, Crystal’s book is a great place to learn more. And I think you’ll find that your mind will be put at ease. [click to continue…]
My awesome parents, knowing all about my obsession with words, recorded the Empire of the Word documentary series that aired on TVO last month for me. It was developed and narrated by the very impressive Alberto Manguel, author of A History of Reading, The Library at Night, and The City of Words among other titles.
I watched every episode in a single sitting, and I have a hunch you’ll be as fascinated as I was. So brew some tea, get comfy, and follow the links below to the Empire of the Word.
Episode one is called “The Magic of Reading” and explores the origins of the written word and our irrepressible desire to read.
Episode two is titled “Learning to Read” and considers the intellectual triumph of reading from the neurology of the human mind to the education of new readers.
Episode three is called “Forbidden Reading” and investigates the authorities who have tried to ban the creation and consumption of texts as well as the people who fight for our right to read.
Episode four, “The Future of Reading,” speculates about how technology is changing the way we read and asks what will become of bound libraries in the years to come.
If you’re still craving more programming about the wonders of language, check out the BBC’s Why Do We Talk? over at the Lingua Franca blog. When you’re done you’ll want to stick around and read some of the really fun posts you’ll find there.
Thanks for watching!
Recommended Read
Prose, Francine. Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them New York: Harper Perennial, 2007. [ISBN-13: 978-0-06-077705-0]
Seeing Francine Prose speak last week galvanized me into finally posting on a book of hers I read last winter. Reading Like a Writer is your chance to sit in Prose’s classroom, where you’ll pull out your magnifying glass to examine just what it is that makes some of the finest books around really tick. This is a course in close reading that everyone can take.
Close reading is one of my favourite ways into the bones and sinews of a good book. You know the kind of book I mean—the book in which every word, detail, and turn of phrase feels as if it is the only one that could fit, as though it were somehow ordained from the beginning? Yeah, I’m remembering some of those books fondly right now…
But to get back to what I was saying, close reading asks you to slow down and ask yourself why the author chose that particular name for the little girl, why you don’t believe the aunt when she says she’s not drinking anymore, why it was Liberace playing on the radio when the taxi crashed. Each of these details reflects the broader story and each one can uncover another of its secrets.
Now, just as every good sleuth studies the case files of the great detectives who came before them, you can read Prose’s chapters on words, sentences, paragraphs, narration, character, dialogue, details, and gestures to learn how to unravel the mysteries your favourite books may still be concealing from you.
Prose provides a wealth of literary examples to show you what to look for: how Edith’s tepid and ill-fitting replies reveal that she’s just not that into Albert, how a boiled potato in a spreading pool of blood can make a scene more chilling, how the movements of a housefly can reveal the mind of its tormentor. After reading her examples, drawn from so many excellent books and stories, you’ll be glad to find that Prose has included all her sources in a list of “Books to Be Read Immediately.” And when you’re done this book, if you’re like me, you’ll be tempted to head back to all your favourite reads with an eye for what’s there that you haven’t yet seen.
I read Francine Prose‘s Reading like a Writer last winter on my pre-dawn morning commutes. And ever since, it has been on my list of books to share with you here on the Word Blog. That post will come soon—next week, in fact—but today’s post is about her appearance last night at the Toronto Public Library as part of The Writer’s Room.
First of all, let me say that Prose’s body of work is impressively varied and that she’s prolific. I’ll be featuring her book on writing and close reading next week because this is, after all, a blog about words, but I encourage you to seek out her works of fiction, young adult fiction, children’s fiction and nonfiction, as well.
Ian Brown sat opposite Prose for last night’s interview and asked about many aspects of her work and her practice of writing. I was pleased to learn that in her classes, as in Reading Like a Writer, Prose teaches close reading of literature. She and her students ask “why this sentence, this turn of phrase, this word?” Courses that teach students to ask how these small elements affect and reflect the narrative as a whole—that ask students to slow down in their reading and really analyse the work for the multiple valences of the words within it—are rare. I had the good fortune to take a few literature courses that focused on this kind of close reading, and I’m grateful that I was taught not just how to write and argue, but how to read, as well.
Prose’s most recent book, Anne Frank, considers Anne Frank’s famous diary not just as a historical document but as a work of literature in its own right. Her description last night of Frank’s beautiful writing, deftly managed cast of characters and her precocious awareness and observance of her social and political environment as a very young woman has inspired me to read the diary again. And, naturally, once I’ve done that I’ll be checking out Prose’s Anne Frank.
I won’t go in to too much depth about Prose’s other titles here, except to say that she’s a New York Times bestselling author, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and has written about Caravaggio, muses, breasts, gluttony, and of course the lives of imaginary people. You’re sure to find something you’ll enjoy.
You can also hear an interview with Francine Prose that aired today on CBC’s Q by following this link. http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/qpodcast_20091119_23327.mp3 (the interview begins at 14:40).
And you’ll be able to watch a video recording of last night’s talk at the Toronto Public Library’s website soon. I’ll update this post with the link once the video is available.
