On Books, Lists of Books, and Also John Hodgman

There's been another salvo fired in the war over whether books as we know them are dying. In an Op-Ed column for the New York Times, James Gleick writes about why he sees the physical book as surviving the coming digitization of everything. "As a technology, the book is like a hammer. That is to say, it is perfect: a tool ideally suited to its task. Hammers can be tweaked and varied but will never go obsolete... It is significant that one says book lover and music lover and art lover but not record lover or CD lover or, conversely, text lover." [Via Shaken & Stirred]

Also, if you love lists, especially end of year best books lists, then largeheartedboy has just the thing to fill your time this holiday season. In an impressive bit of scouring, he's compiled a collection of dozens upon dozens of end of year best lists, ranging from such obvious stalwarts as Amazon.com or the New York Times, to the St. John's Telegram list of "best Canadian cookbooks."

And in more information than you require news , check out this interview at the New Yorker with John Hodgman about, among other things, his new book, More Information Than You Require.

A Literary Oddity Named John Hodgman

Reader folk,

Go here: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/

Scroll down to: "Welcoming Remarks Made at a Literary Reading, 9/25/01" by John Hodgman

Read until the end.

And you thought this guy could only be funny. If you don't know who John Hodgman is, he's the PC in those PC vs. Mac commercials (See photo). He does other stuff too.

He's coming to Oxford November 20th to read and promote some of that other stuff at Thacker Mountain Radio, a local shindig composed of equal parts music and literature. Yay :)

If you're reading this after 9/11/08 and not, by chance, on 9/11/09, then you may have to google your way to the article.

That is all.