December
Erelevant Virtual Reading Group
If you believe Steve Jobs, then reading good, old-fashioned paper books is becoming a dead practice. I, for one, love books. I love how they feel, how they smell, and I love the process of taking long periods of time to explore and absorb ideas. That’s why, as a regular feature here at erelevant, I’d like to invite you to read some interesting books with us as part of a virtual reading group!
The idea is simple: I’ll feature two or three books at a time (pictured in the sidebar) and post a schedule for reading them chapter by chapter. As I read them, I will post a synopsis of the chapter and then everyone is invited to discuss the chapter with me in the comments. The advantage of doing this online is that you need not read the chapters on time or even in the right order—just post your commentary when you get around to it.
Please reply to this message with suggestions for interesting books to read in the future. Books should be nonfiction and should have something to do with the loose themes that erelevant addresses (electronic culture, marketing, youth, etc).
Give your eyes a break from the screen and put some paper in your hands! Of course, I guess you can use your Kindle …
Books I am or am going to feature:
Solove , Daniel J., The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet
Sun Tzu (Thomas Cleary trans.), The Art of War
Zittrain, Jonathan, The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It
March 18th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I’m in! What about “The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It” ?
March 18th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
oooh.. That looks like a good one. I’ll add it to the list!
Jonathan Zittrain seems a fascinating guy… are you going to see him lecture or attend the book release? ;)
The book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Future-Internet-How-Stop/dp/0300124872
Zittrain’s blog:
http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/z/
March 18th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Just saw him moderate Harvard Journal of Law & Technology’s symposium final speaker presentation with Peter Fleischer, Google chief privacy counsel–was quite cool. Berkman Center book presentation for Access Denied was afterwards but I had to make it home. But since I’m an intern at the berkman center (working offsite :( from yale) I keep a close eye on what he is doing with them, yeah. His book is Yale Uni Press and is first being released w/ signing in NYC, so it’s hypothetically possible I could go, but I will likely be too busy. :(
April 10th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I’m surprised nothing by Seth Godin is on the list. He’s very tuned into modern culture and marketing. I think his latest is “Meatball Sundae.”
BTW, I agree with you about books. Somehow reading on the screen seems less “real.”
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:49 am
Hello,
I think this is a fab idea. I would suggest Clay Shirky’s Here Comes everyone, or Charles Leadbeater’s We-think: The Power of Mass Creativity.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I concur. Books are what I live for. When I come home every day, I must hold a book in my hands and breath in its substance for at least an hour. Don’t get me wrong, the electronic world is my field, my passion, but books, I cannot live without, as Thomas Jefferson once said.
I’ll be on the lookout for interesting books.
P.S. Is PHP better or worse than xhtml and css? Is it fun to work with?
December 8th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Levi: XHTML and CSS are sort of structural ‘authoring’ languages useful for controlling the content and look of a website. PHP is more of a behind-the-scenes programming language. For instance, this blog uses WordPress, which is written in PHP and uses XHTML and CSS as well. They all three work together.