New experiments show how much we’ve come to rely on the Internet to know things. From Big Think: The Internet as Hive Mind.
“When we’re faced with hard questions, we don’t search our minds—we first think of the Web.”
From NPR. Noted author Larry McMurtry has become just as noted for being a used bookseller. But he is giving it all up and selling his collection of more than a half-million books. The Last Book Sale.
“His store, Booked Up, spills across four buildings in his small hometown of Archer City, Texas, and houses nearly half a million rare and used books. But starting this Friday, McMurtry is holding an auction to whittle down that number — by a lot.”
Robert Hughes died this week. I just finished his latest book, Rome, which I would highly recommend. Hughes made a name for himself with his series about modern art: The Shock of the New.
James Salter writes about the personal library in his New Yorker review of Jacques Bonnet’s “Phantoms on the Bookshelves.”
“Under the pretense of writing about this library—its origins, contents, and organization—he has written instead this often witty tribute to and perhaps requiem for a life built around reading that summons up all the magical and seductive power of books.”
