Tag Archives: book review

Unknown's avatar

Book Review: Currently Reading – Print is Dead, by Jeff Gomez

by

I have just started reading ‘Print is Dead – Books in our Digital Age,’ by Jeff Gomez. This book explores the future of books, with Gomez being an advocate of ebooks. I think it is fair to say that Gomez sees a future where the traditional book is little more than a relic of the past. This is certainly a view I would agree with for a number of reasons, though I do believe the traditional book will hold on for some time to come (how long I cannot say). I believe Gomez would hold to the same view from what I have read thus far (to the end of chapter 1).

In the first chapter, ‘byte flight,’ Gomez accurately sums up the situation in the traditional book vs ebook debate. There are certainly plenty of people (I was once one) who cannot see the ebook winning the battle (if we can call it a battle) and who hold a romantic attachment of sorts to the traditional book. I think this will continue to be the case among older generations for some time yet, with many older people reluctant to ‘move with the times (such a my mother and her husband).’ There are a number of reasons for this and Gomez describes some of these reluctant views in the first chapter. Overall, opposition to the dominance of the ebook is termed as ‘byte flight,’ and is probably as good a term as any to use.

Gomez believes that the younger generations will lead the way for the dominance of the ebook and in this I think he is largely correct. The digital generations are more likely to read digital books and use digital gadgets and as this grows more and more the norm, ebooks will become more and more dominant at the expense of traditional books.

See also:
http://www.dontcallhome.com/books.html (Website of Jeff Gomez)
Podcast (Excerpts from the Book)
Google Books
Amazon

Unknown's avatar

Not My Review: ‘If Walls Could Talk – An Intimate History of the Home,’ by Lucy Worsley

by

The link below is to a book review that I didn’t write. Every so often I’ll be posting a link to a book review with, ‘Not My Review.’ The book reviewed in this ‘Not My Review’ is ‘If Walls Could Talk – An Intimate History of the Home,’ by Lucy Worsley.

For more visit:
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/13/148296032/if-walls-could-talk-a-history-of-the-home

Unknown's avatar

Edmund Barton, by John Reynolds

by

Yes, I have finally managed to put up another post on this Blog – been quite a while I know. I apologise for that – been very busy with other pursuits.

Today’s book review is on ‘Edmund Barton,’ by John Reynolds. This book is the first in a series on Australia’s Prime Ministers by Bookman Press. The Bookman Press series sought to re-publish the best biographies on each of the Australian Prime Ministers to coincide with the centenary of Australian Federation. ‘Edmund Barton,’ by John Reynolds, was first published in 1948.

This book, though about Edmund Barton, is also a good introduction to the process of Australia becoming a federation of colonies to form the modern day nation of Australia. A biography of Barton must be a study of the beginning of Federation as Barton was probably one of the most important players in bringing Federation to pass, which also meant the creation of Australia as one nation. It is a fascinating introduction to just how a modern Australia was born from the federation of the various colonies that were then situated on the Australian mainland and in Tasmania.

As far as reading goes, I found the book to contain much that interested me, as I have not read or studied a lot on the federation of Australia and the process by which it was achieved. For me this has been an important addition to my understanding of Australian history in an area in which my understanding was quite poor. Having said that, I do not think the book is necessarily an easy read, but requires discipline to keep at it.