reading

I have trouble keeping up with all links to great long-form journalism and essays that stream past every day, but here are my favourites (out of the ones I managed to catch and read and either remember or save (thank you Longreads & Instapaper)). In not much of an order: How the Internet gets inside us, Adam [...]

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I decided it was time to improve my writing. It felt both forced and stifled: artless, lifeless, joyless and uninteresting. And my reading was falling off too, both in quantity and quality. The two problems — with writing and reading — seemed connected. I hoped reading more (and more importantly, reading better) would help me write [...]

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“Books are being replaced by reading,“ to borrow a phrase from Jack Shafer. Digital technology “distances us from the old magic conjured by books” by giving us better ways to get what’s inside them. Of course the tactile experience is lost, but that’s only a sentimental attachment — not without genuine value, but not without considerable influence from purely [...]

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Let’s look at the genuine potential of new technology instead of dwelling on what’s being replaced — whether in remorse or celebration… This began as a response to Nicholas Carr’s Experiments in Delinkification a few months ago. I sat on it until Scott Rosenberg brought the topic up again this week with a series of [...]

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Reality Hunger: A Manifesto by David Shields One of 2010′s most talked written-about books. For anyone interested in writing and storytelling this might be worth owning and occasionally flipping through for inspiration. A lot of great insights about truth and fiction — and whether either can really exist in pure form — much of which [...]

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My book is finished and available for purchase, download, or reading online. Sorry if you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, where I already mentioned it a few days ago. This is the formal “announcement.” Description: Truth, Will & Relevance outlines an innovative way to understand human nature and conduct — conceived specifically to address [...]

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Tyler Cowen started this meme, which I noticed via Michael Martin. Arnold Kling took it up as well. I’ve already written a very long post about all of the books that influenced me. The books on this list are by no means the ones I love or respect the most. Some of them influenced me in [...]

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With me it varies a lot. Sometimes I’ll write a blog post about it. Depends though. For the last couple of fiction books I wrote little reviews immediately after I finished them. I think I was trying to articulate “what they were about,” or something. Sometimes I’ll write a post that isn’t exactly about the [...]

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Lately I’ve been more inclined towards long-form — both in writing and in reading. I’m back in the rhythm I had in 2007: writing actual essays at a rate of one-per-week. Maybe that’s the last thing people want, but it’s where I perceive a need. It’s also where I’m most likely to add unique value and [...]

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Ldn Reading Group Update

by Brian on 10-12-2009

in london

Regarding the reading group, Titus and I chatted briefly at gdldn (last week was pretty chaotic for pulling people together), just enough to touch base but there are still some specifics to figure out, starting with: when? where? what? As goes without saying, feedback and suggestions are more than welcome. I’m probably more flexible than [...]

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Last week there were a couple of remarks on Twitter about Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody and within an hour or so we had a handful of people interested in doing some sort of book club. So far 9 people have signed up for the group at Goodreads. It’s open to anyone in the London [...]

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What I’m Reading, Now at Goodreads

by Brian on 05-05-2009

in art,media

I signed up for Goodreads last summer and now I’m finally using it thanks to the fact I actually know other people on there — the whole point of it is to make book-reading more social. Here’s my profile if you’re interested in friending-up — the more, the better. I signed up after reading an [...]

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