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Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times
Andrew Piper grew up liking books and loving computers. While occasionally burying his nose in books, he was going to computer camp, programming his Radio Shack TRS-80, and playing Pong. His eventual love of reading made him a historian of the book and a connoisseur of print, but as a card-carrying member of the first digital generation—and the father of two digital natives—he understands that we live in electronic times. Book Was There is Piper’s surprising and always entertaining essay on reading in an e-reader world.
Much ink has been spilled lamenting or championing the decline of printed books, but Piper shows that the rich history of reading itself offers unexpected clues to what lies in store for books, print or digital. From medieval manuscript books to today’s playable media and interactive urban fictions, Piper explores the manifold ways that physical media have shaped how we read, while also observing his own children as they face the struggles and triumphs of learning to read. In doing so, he uncovers the intimate connections we develop with our reading materials—how we hold them, look at them, share them, play with them, and even where we read them—and shows how reading is interwoven with our experiences in life. Piper reveals that reading’s many identities, past and present, on page and on screen, are the key to helping us understand the kind of reading we care about and how new technologies will—and will not—change old habits.
Contending that our experience of reading belies naive generalizations about the future of books, Book Was There is an elegantly argued and thoroughly up-to-date tribute to the endurance of books in our ever-evolving digital world.
Much ink has been spilled lamenting or championing the decline of printed books, but Piper shows that the rich history of reading itself offers unexpected clues to what lies in store for books, print or digital. From medieval manuscript books to today’s playable media and interactive urban fictions, Piper explores the manifold ways that physical media have shaped how we read, while also observing his own children as they face the struggles and triumphs of learning to read. In doing so, he uncovers the intimate connections we develop with our reading materials—how we hold them, look at them, share them, play with them, and even where we read them—and shows how reading is interwoven with our experiences in life. Piper reveals that reading’s many identities, past and present, on page and on screen, are the key to helping us understand the kind of reading we care about and how new technologies will—and will not—change old habits.
Contending that our experience of reading belies naive generalizations about the future of books, Book Was There is an elegantly argued and thoroughly up-to-date tribute to the endurance of books in our ever-evolving digital world.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
15 people are currently reading
358 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Piper
6 books6 followersI grew up liking books but loving computers. While I have fond memories of reading books, I have even fonder ones of going to computer camp, programming my TRS-80 and playing Pong. I belong to that first generation of children who grew up using home computers. I think it was this combination that led to my interest in the history of books and literature, to think about the way technologies change how we read and think. I am now a professor of literature at McGill University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
did-not-finish
February 4, 2017I really was interested in reading about reading in electronic times but this is just the history of the book, rehashed, with esoteric details that I found uninteresting. Brief mentions of eBooks and their readers but it's so small of an element to this book that this is definitely badly named and marketed.
August 14, 2020
This series of reflections considers the book and reading from several unexpected angles.
Chapter two, intriguingly titled “Face, Book”—explores the history of the interaction of books and faces, from woodcuts of authors at the front of early books to the notion of “typeface” to the meaning of faces online today.
A chapter on sharing books looks at the communal aspect of reading throughout history and hindrances to it. Once books were chained to library tables and now no one owns a Kindle ebook but only licenses it.
Serendipitously I found myself reading the chapter, “Among the Trees,” while I was outside. Reading outdoors was fashionable and faddish in the eighteenth century, for example. The image of a tree of knowledge changed over the centuries to a field of knowledge with important implications.
The interaction of numbers and counting with reading (chapter seven) goes back to the earliest examples of writing ten thousand years ago which were accounts of items bought, sold, and used. Today algorithmic analysis of books is providing new ways of understanding texts.
Piper’s book takes note of the changes afoot with digital texts, but is not obsessed by it. As much history as current events, Book Was There looks at how books have been and are used in daily life, how our views of books have changed, and their ongoing significance.
Chapter two, intriguingly titled “Face, Book”—explores the history of the interaction of books and faces, from woodcuts of authors at the front of early books to the notion of “typeface” to the meaning of faces online today.
A chapter on sharing books looks at the communal aspect of reading throughout history and hindrances to it. Once books were chained to library tables and now no one owns a Kindle ebook but only licenses it.
Serendipitously I found myself reading the chapter, “Among the Trees,” while I was outside. Reading outdoors was fashionable and faddish in the eighteenth century, for example. The image of a tree of knowledge changed over the centuries to a field of knowledge with important implications.
The interaction of numbers and counting with reading (chapter seven) goes back to the earliest examples of writing ten thousand years ago which were accounts of items bought, sold, and used. Today algorithmic analysis of books is providing new ways of understanding texts.
Piper’s book takes note of the changes afoot with digital texts, but is not obsessed by it. As much history as current events, Book Was There looks at how books have been and are used in daily life, how our views of books have changed, and their ongoing significance.
May 22, 2015
I would've picked this book up on my own; the evolution of literature and reading is one of my personal and professional pet topics -- and this series of essays on where 'the book' is going falls squarely into that territory.
But here's some weird: Andrew Piper was one of my (favourite) professors in my lit degree. I listened eagerly to his lectures and was impressed at his ability to engage a class, appreciated the genuinely interesting course texts (many of which, incidentally, are referenced in Book Was There), and...he graded my assignments. And let me tell you, it feels very strange to be reviewing the work of a guy who gave me feedback on my occasionally-crazy term papers.
In some ways, Book Was There is to media crit what Gravity's Rainbow is to literature. It flows with more beauty than concrete substance, and it's got its own internal logic that I'm not sure is ever supposed to be entirely figured out. Certainly there is no discernible central argument, but Piper never claims there will be. One of the best lines, in fact, is kind of a microcosm of the whole text: "In the spirit of my own past, [this book] is decidedly stereoscopic." It is -- anecdotes and facts spiral comfortably around each other, as do discussions of print and new media. This is a fun and informative read -- though as with a fair bit of academia, the personal interests of the author sometimes amount to an excessive inclusion of throwaway facts. But this book swirls as opposed to streams -- so it's more excusable, I think, than in straight-argument texts.
I can absolutely see how this book would be frustrating, mainly due to its lack of concrete argument. But I do think that's the point -- there is no one way to approach this debate. Our understanding of narrative, reading, and structure itself is shifting -- to have a specific argument at play would not only become completely antiquated within like five years, but it'd also be against the spirit of Book Was There. Play, Piper reminds us, is key. This is playful criticism.
That said, a few things threw me for a loop -- particularly the very generalized, overweening descriptions of what reading is or can be. In a book so open, to make universal statements about how people experience reading seems seriously out of place. One line in particular made me raise my eyebrows like fifty feet above my head okay you ready for this, literophiles? "There is ultimately a sadness to reading, not only because it is so nonvital, sluggish, or even deadening." Um excuse me what the fuck kind of reading is being described, here?! Change "is" to "can be" and alright, maybe I'm on board, but even then -- I don't think I've ever had a "deadening" reading experience. Frustrating, infuriating, boring, sure -- but I have never once felt less alive at the end of a book.
Reading, for me, is an exceptionally and inexorably vibrant experience. And the danger with lit and media criticism, of course, is that the author will go in a direction that doesn't agree with your perspective. But because the experience of reading is so central to Book Was There, generalizations made throughout about why and how people read sat totally wrong with me.
Still -- there is enough here for anyone to chew on, and while I don't know that any of it is particularly conceptually novel, the form-as-content nods are cool enough to make the whole thing so very worthwhile.
But here's some weird: Andrew Piper was one of my (favourite) professors in my lit degree. I listened eagerly to his lectures and was impressed at his ability to engage a class, appreciated the genuinely interesting course texts (many of which, incidentally, are referenced in Book Was There), and...he graded my assignments. And let me tell you, it feels very strange to be reviewing the work of a guy who gave me feedback on my occasionally-crazy term papers.
In some ways, Book Was There is to media crit what Gravity's Rainbow is to literature. It flows with more beauty than concrete substance, and it's got its own internal logic that I'm not sure is ever supposed to be entirely figured out. Certainly there is no discernible central argument, but Piper never claims there will be. One of the best lines, in fact, is kind of a microcosm of the whole text: "In the spirit of my own past, [this book] is decidedly stereoscopic." It is -- anecdotes and facts spiral comfortably around each other, as do discussions of print and new media. This is a fun and informative read -- though as with a fair bit of academia, the personal interests of the author sometimes amount to an excessive inclusion of throwaway facts. But this book swirls as opposed to streams -- so it's more excusable, I think, than in straight-argument texts.
I can absolutely see how this book would be frustrating, mainly due to its lack of concrete argument. But I do think that's the point -- there is no one way to approach this debate. Our understanding of narrative, reading, and structure itself is shifting -- to have a specific argument at play would not only become completely antiquated within like five years, but it'd also be against the spirit of Book Was There. Play, Piper reminds us, is key. This is playful criticism.
That said, a few things threw me for a loop -- particularly the very generalized, overweening descriptions of what reading is or can be. In a book so open, to make universal statements about how people experience reading seems seriously out of place. One line in particular made me raise my eyebrows like fifty feet above my head okay you ready for this, literophiles? "There is ultimately a sadness to reading, not only because it is so nonvital, sluggish, or even deadening." Um excuse me what the fuck kind of reading is being described, here?! Change "is" to "can be" and alright, maybe I'm on board, but even then -- I don't think I've ever had a "deadening" reading experience. Frustrating, infuriating, boring, sure -- but I have never once felt less alive at the end of a book.
Reading, for me, is an exceptionally and inexorably vibrant experience. And the danger with lit and media criticism, of course, is that the author will go in a direction that doesn't agree with your perspective. But because the experience of reading is so central to Book Was There, generalizations made throughout about why and how people read sat totally wrong with me.
Still -- there is enough here for anyone to chew on, and while I don't know that any of it is particularly conceptually novel, the form-as-content nods are cool enough to make the whole thing so very worthwhile.
November 20, 2012
I made a special point of hunting this down after reading Piper's excellent piece "The Past, Present, and Future of the Book," in The Chronicle of Higher Education, as I'm always a sucker for a good discussion of the place of the printed word in a digital age. Piper gives me about 2/7ths of the discussion I was looking for, surrounding excellent chapters "Sharing" and "By the Numbers" (Computational textual analysis to discover the effect of The Sorrows of Young Werther on 18th century literature? Yes, please!) with dull if extremely erudite material shoehorned onto a narrative framework that practically screams "I'm an academic! Ask me how!" Still even the boring bits have some fun trivia, and the footnotes are a cornucopia of Google searches waiting to happen.
October 12, 2015
It was and will now return to the bookshelf where it sat, unread for a couple of years. But the ideas captured on the printed page, transmuted into digitized pixels for personal reflection, will haunt me each time I pick up another book or purchase one to add to my collection. Not even all the storage space provided seemingly free via a cloud of data will contain the history of scratching black shapes onto white objects. Piper brings into the discussion his own reading life and mentions the modernized malady that his children are undergoing as they start their schooling. No definitive conclusion is offered, other than how we will have to keep reading to get to a point where books are a quaint cultural artifact like the Grecian urn or the cat-o'-nine-tails.
January 7, 2013
What a slog. If I was not reading this for work, I would have put it down unfinished. There were one or two interesting points, but overall, I was unimpressed. Mr. Piper reminds me of certain of my colleagues, who love to hear themselves talk during meetings and so will raise points with no relevance whatsoever to the discussion or simply repeat what has already been said, adding nothing new. Disappointing.
November 23, 2022
„Skimming is the new reading.“ That is technically true if the book you‘re reading isn‘t even about what it promises…
please don‘t call your book „reading in electronic times“ and then barely mention anything related to that… i wasted so much of my time:/
please don‘t call your book „reading in electronic times“ and then barely mention anything related to that… i wasted so much of my time:/
March 19, 2024
I tried getting into the book, but it is not interesting. It is comprised of different articles with faint connection with books. Maybe I am too purposeful, but when I read I want to know something concrete. This book is not getting us anywhere.
September 13, 2017
Required reading for Info Needs of Adults.
Some parts were more interesting than others, but some where really rough to get through.
Some parts were more interesting than others, but some where really rough to get through.
October 15, 2017
"The closer we are, whether physically or intellectually, the less we need to share. Sharing is a sign of shearing, a fork in the road to which we cannot return" (95).
<3 <3 <3
<3 <3 <3
November 24, 2020
I loved reading this book. It helps to understand why reading book can be a transformative experience.
Read
January 28, 2014This book explores the relationship, comparison/contrast and interweaving, of reading the book as codex and reading the book (or other things) in the range of ways that constitute the digital--screen based, mostly. Book Was There does so in a way that, formally speaking, feels almost web-like, or brain-storming, associative. There are nodes, or branches perhaps, topoi that Piper explores in chapter-essays. He thinks about the handling of the book {hands and the book}, the face and the book, the idea of the turn of a page (or the swipe of a screen), note-taking, sharing, pages, and numeration. It is a long, accessible, and even sort of poetic riff on the ways that the forms of the book work on us and in us (and in each other).
At first, reading the book on the elliptical, which is where I do most of my accessible reading, I found myself really going too fast. I knew there were many small sentences worth meditating on more fully. THere are lines such as this: "Books are how we speak with the distant and the dead. That the past lives on in books is a commonplace. The important point is that we can close books--and thus our relationship to the past." Lines such as , "The face not only faces us, it also marks a turning point. The face is a space of translation." Or, "[Notes] are translational at their core, like the ribosomes of human thought." Or "The book was there so that we wouldn't have to be." Or "How can one know where reading books ends and dreaming in books begins?" They are lovely little lines. They provocatively sum up, and, should the reader take her time, will no doubt bear contemplative fruit. But the rest of the book was so nicely accessible that I mostly didn't take time to actually think about those sentences. And later, moving through the book, I wished they were fleshed out rather than, as I realized in time, the "link" or "transition" or "summation" sentences at the end of paragraphs. I wanted, I suppose, more than the hint-half guessed, even if I do recognize that accessibility and luminosity sort of go together. I wanted more philosophy.
Or theology? The provocative idea, for instance, that conversion is at the heart of [Augustine's] reading, was glanced upon...and I longed for a fuller look. That little glance--along with the face and notes as spaces of translation--will be the nuggets I chew on as I go forth.
Still, I enjoyed the way that so many little references to writers and readers got joined up here. I find myself excited to hear Piper's more scholarly work, literarytopologies.org, when he comes to Wheaton next week.
I found the language, particularly the asides and parentheses, winsome
At first, reading the book on the elliptical, which is where I do most of my accessible reading, I found myself really going too fast. I knew there were many small sentences worth meditating on more fully. THere are lines such as this: "Books are how we speak with the distant and the dead. That the past lives on in books is a commonplace. The important point is that we can close books--and thus our relationship to the past." Lines such as , "The face not only faces us, it also marks a turning point. The face is a space of translation." Or, "[Notes] are translational at their core, like the ribosomes of human thought." Or "The book was there so that we wouldn't have to be." Or "How can one know where reading books ends and dreaming in books begins?" They are lovely little lines. They provocatively sum up, and, should the reader take her time, will no doubt bear contemplative fruit. But the rest of the book was so nicely accessible that I mostly didn't take time to actually think about those sentences. And later, moving through the book, I wished they were fleshed out rather than, as I realized in time, the "link" or "transition" or "summation" sentences at the end of paragraphs. I wanted, I suppose, more than the hint-half guessed, even if I do recognize that accessibility and luminosity sort of go together. I wanted more philosophy.
Or theology? The provocative idea, for instance, that conversion is at the heart of [Augustine's] reading, was glanced upon...and I longed for a fuller look. That little glance--along with the face and notes as spaces of translation--will be the nuggets I chew on as I go forth.
Still, I enjoyed the way that so many little references to writers and readers got joined up here. I find myself excited to hear Piper's more scholarly work, literarytopologies.org, when he comes to Wheaton next week.
I found the language, particularly the asides and parentheses, winsome
December 13, 2012
I found this beautiful little hardcover at my university library while looking for books on libraries and librarianship. I sensed that I was nearing the end of the line where books on libraries ended and books on general reading started but I kept browsing anyway. Then I saw the spine. The dark and bold letters, the beautiful typography, the italicized serif... It was like love at first sight. It just stood out from the rest of the others books that crowded near it. As soon as I opened the book up and read the first paragraph, I was sold. Boom, I took it out.
This book touches on a rather interesting debate that I'm not quite sure which side I'm on. I started reading the book hoping for some answers (I should know by now that books rarely give me the answers I want) and was left feeling even more confused than before. But this is a good thing. Piper encourages the readers to think (if you picked up this book, then I'm sure that's what you intended to do anyway). The written word has gone through many transformations and this new digital age is just another one of hopefully many to come. I think that's one of the most important things that I took away from this book.
As someone who is seriously divided over this issue (I have spent a little more than half of my life "exclusively" reading books and the rest exclusively on the Internet - note how I did not put quotations around exclusively the second time), this was an eye opener. Those footnotes are going to be keeping me busy for a while.
This book touches on a rather interesting debate that I'm not quite sure which side I'm on. I started reading the book hoping for some answers (I should know by now that books rarely give me the answers I want) and was left feeling even more confused than before. But this is a good thing. Piper encourages the readers to think (if you picked up this book, then I'm sure that's what you intended to do anyway). The written word has gone through many transformations and this new digital age is just another one of hopefully many to come. I think that's one of the most important things that I took away from this book.
As someone who is seriously divided over this issue (I have spent a little more than half of my life "exclusively" reading books and the rest exclusively on the Internet - note how I did not put quotations around exclusively the second time), this was an eye opener. Those footnotes are going to be keeping me busy for a while.
March 28, 2013
A book for book-lovers.
Andrew Piper aim is "an attempt to understand the relationship between books and screens, to identify some of their fundamental differences and to chart out the continuities that night run between them" (ix). In laying out the terrain of reading (its past and present) he reminds us "how much work reading requires to sustain itself" (149).
My favorite discussions included note-taking, commonplace books, the importance of penmanship, where one reads, "social reading" and sharing in a digital age, the "art of pseudonymity in a world that has largely given up on anonymity" (43), and how books change us. There are many more thought-provoking discussions like these.
Believe it or not, the author attended while in college to the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia. (It sounds as magical as Hogwarts — sign me up!) He writes with clarity and with an impressive wealth of knowledge without being cumbersome. So: take up and read.
Andrew Piper aim is "an attempt to understand the relationship between books and screens, to identify some of their fundamental differences and to chart out the continuities that night run between them" (ix). In laying out the terrain of reading (its past and present) he reminds us "how much work reading requires to sustain itself" (149).
My favorite discussions included note-taking, commonplace books, the importance of penmanship, where one reads, "social reading" and sharing in a digital age, the "art of pseudonymity in a world that has largely given up on anonymity" (43), and how books change us. There are many more thought-provoking discussions like these.
Believe it or not, the author attended while in college to the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia. (It sounds as magical as Hogwarts — sign me up!) He writes with clarity and with an impressive wealth of knowledge without being cumbersome. So: take up and read.
October 9, 2013
Piper does an excellent job situating the book within its contemporary and historic contexts, exploring the various ways people interact with books and digital counterparts to excellent effect. I was particularly impressed by the number of fields Piper drew from to illuminate his topics. My one critique pertains to the lack of argument, an absence that Piper freely acknowledges in his introduction, which explains the book should be seen more as a series of essays in which he explores themes rather than gathers evidence in service of a singular argument. In general, I'm sympathetic to this, but I was so compelled by some of the arguments Piper did insert at various points (particularly his ideas about DRM and scarcity) that I found myself wanting more.
April 21, 2023
This is about the human relationship to reading books and electronic media, the history and the future of that relationship. The approach is functional: how do we read books and screens, how does it differ? Touch, sight, motion, use: these are the topics, and they often led to surprising places. While it is an academic book , it's something of a hybrid with general-readership appeal; for example, several chapters end with Piper’s anecdotes about his children’s experiences with reading and how they illustrate the points made in the chapter.
FMI see my blog post at A Just Recompense.
FMI see my blog post at A Just Recompense.
December 21, 2012
Full of good insights, and very even-handed about the benefits of old and new media and methods for reading. Ironically, I was frustrated as I read it because the medium failed me: I couldn't take notes in the printed library book, and bus rides don't accommodate a pen and notepad in addition to a book. Still waiting for ebooks to be ownable, not just licensed, and for an electronic annotation system that will allow me to cross-reference ideas across authors. The points made in this book made me realize that, as far off as that system might be, if it ever comes it will complement, not replace, other modes of reading.
September 1, 2015
I read this book for a class, and I can admit that I have more trouble enjoying books that I am forced to read. There were definitely times where my mind started to wander elsewhere, yet more often than not, it was the text that initiated a thought that turned into another thought and so on. It may be a bit dry here and there, but overall, it is a book that stimulates thought. Well researched and well sourced, it is a truly academic piece.
![Profile Image for laurel [the suspected bibliophile].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1645808644i%2F7494844._UX200_CR0%2C6%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
September 17, 2016
I'm probably not smart enough to get this one, but he is fond of throwing out works that probably mean something, but only if you know. And there just seemed to be no point to it. Just a lot of blah, blah, blah. Not to mention photos of modern art pieces that make you cock your head, raise an eyebrow and ask, "That's art?!"
As someone else put it so beautifully, book was there, but argument was not.
As someone else put it so beautifully, book was there, but argument was not.
January 30, 2013
This was a page turner, like the blurbs suggest! I love reading about reading so much, and this is an excellent and very contemporary look at things like why it's important for our minds to wander, for us to share or keep an experience (of reading) to ourselves... and the bibliography is fantastic. Thank you Andrew Piper!
July 7, 2014
I picked this book off the shelf at the library on a whim and was very impressed. Piper is a Canadian academic and provides an interesting perspective on the history of books and reading and how it has evolved into the digital age. He's not alarmist or dismissive of the changes that reading has undergone; rather, he's informed and allusive.
August 3, 2015
I really wanted to like this book and gave it 15% (yes I was reading the ebook version). This far in, I still couldn't tell what the author's goal or point was, and found it overly deterministic. There is little I like less than technological determinism so I couldn't bring myself to make it any farther. A disappointment.
July 24, 2014
Admittedly, this book is not for everyone. It reads like an essay for a collegiate English course, drawing some very esoteric conclusions and connections about reading and books. It's really sort of a long love letter to books and reading, and I, therefore, loved it.
April 9, 2015
Interesting analysis of books, reading, and observation of our world through an author's eyes. This is one I want to reread. It's been a year since I've read it. For the bibliophile but far from a dry treatise.
December 17, 2014
One of my favorite books read this year. Piper never lets his subject become academic and it is a most accessible treatment of a topic we are all talking about, if not actually trying to deal with. My review: http://bookinwithsunny.com/book-2/
December 20, 2012
A few good insights, padded with a million "see also" references. Not nearly as good as I had hoped.
February 22, 2013
"I can imagine a world without books. I cannot imagine one without reading."
February 22, 2013
Wonderfully written, rich, thoughtful reflections on the history of books and reading. Something bibliophiles will enjoy most.
June 19, 2013
I would have liked to give this book more than three stars, but there were several serious problems with it.
September 8, 2013
Este es uno de los mejores ensayos sobre el tránsito del libro en papel al libro digital. Inteligente, erudito, bien escrito.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews