London Independent columnist Johann Hari makes the case for books and reading in the digital age — a nice counter-balance, of sorts, to the post just below this about the appeal of short stories: That’s why we need books, and why I believe they will survive. Because most humans have a desire to engage in [...]

From Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work!, a terrific, unorthodox new biography by Douglas Coupland: [S]omewhere around 2003 the texture of daily life inside Western media-driven societies began to morph, and quickly, to the point where, a half-decade later, it’s now obvious to people who were around in the twentieth century that time [...]

Is the internet killing our brains and driving us to distraction? Or does it promote creativity and innovation? The trailer for the forthcoming book, Where Good Ideas Come From, addresses these and other questions. (Via Kottke)

Interesting piece about reading books in which the author asks, if you can’t remember most of the details in a book even a month after you’ve read it, then why read books at all? Is there value in reading a book beyond the sheer pleasure of it? The answer from Tufts University neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf [...]

I put some of Paul Theroux’s books, including “The Old Patagonian Express” and “Riding the Iron Rooster,” at the top of my list of favorite travel books. His latest, “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star,” is among his best. So I was happy to interview him recently for World Hum. Among other things, I asked [...]