Book V Television
A very good book - amusing ourselves to death, neil postman. A vital one to read i think regarding the decline of print culture and rise of a TV one instead, as main medium/media. It goes into some basic stuff that we take for granted of how the medium hugely affects the substance of culture and thinking. For example, in the 19thC people respected eloquent speaking, every US town had a debating hall and even working class folk went there in droves after work to hear rhetoric at work. How about now?
He notes that Thomas Paines 'common sense' book sold at least 300,000 copies in early 19thC USA, when the population was only 5 million. An astonishing penetration, unthinkable now. That would be like sales of 15 million copies now - what sociology book or ANY book sells that now? Its not just sales but the issue of how the habit of getting info via the printed word helps create a logical, analytical, systematic thinking population. That hugely declined in the TV age.
The Beatles
"...evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with mysterious powers to create a new human species."- Timothy Leary on The Beatles.
Bad reviews
The basic thing about critics or any reviewer is they can say what they like, they can say any old rubbish... and they very often do! As long as they have thought deeply about the book then it's fine to give a reasoned critical point. What i dont like is when they say completely stupid things which show they basically have not 'got it' about the book being focused on , or are just imposing their ill-thought out prejudices on to your work. Ejits!
Some reviewers approach is wilfully destructive and spiteful. The thing is that some people will BELIEVE the rubbish they write... and not buy our books. Once a person on amazon accused me of not being the actual writer of a certain book, and hiding that it was translated by X other person. Even though it clearly says that other person's name on the book itself. But no doubt some folk believed them and thought me a fraud. Bloody annoying...
So, if you cant do well thought out reviews, then, as they say in the Bambi film, 'dont say nothing at all'.
Biased doesn’t mean wrong
Here’s a key point: because some opinion is biased doesn’t mean its wrong. Often when some left wing newspaper makes X point, someone in the comments say ‘Another biased article from The Guardian!’ etc, and they seem to think that therefore the article has pretty much been proven wrong. but it’s not. For example, i dont like beer, I’ve never liked the taste. If i say ‘Drinking a lot of beer is unhealthy’ then someone who likes beer makes say ‘You are biased, we know you don’t like beer.’
Correct, I don’t - but that doesn’t make beer healthy.
A very good book - amusing ourselves to death, neil postman. A vital one to read i think regarding the decline of print culture and rise of a TV one instead, as main medium/media. It goes into some basic stuff that we take for granted of how the medium hugely affects the substance of culture and thinking. For example, in the 19thC people respected eloquent speaking, every US town had a debating hall and even working class folk went there in droves after work to hear rhetoric at work. How about now?
He notes that Thomas Paines 'common sense' book sold at least 300,000 copies in early 19thC USA, when the population was only 5 million. An astonishing penetration, unthinkable now. That would be like sales of 15 million copies now - what sociology book or ANY book sells that now? Its not just sales but the issue of how the habit of getting info via the printed word helps create a logical, analytical, systematic thinking population. That hugely declined in the TV age.
The Beatles
"...evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with mysterious powers to create a new human species."- Timothy Leary on The Beatles.
Bad reviews
The basic thing about critics or any reviewer is they can say what they like, they can say any old rubbish... and they very often do! As long as they have thought deeply about the book then it's fine to give a reasoned critical point. What i dont like is when they say completely stupid things which show they basically have not 'got it' about the book being focused on , or are just imposing their ill-thought out prejudices on to your work. Ejits!
Some reviewers approach is wilfully destructive and spiteful. The thing is that some people will BELIEVE the rubbish they write... and not buy our books. Once a person on amazon accused me of not being the actual writer of a certain book, and hiding that it was translated by X other person. Even though it clearly says that other person's name on the book itself. But no doubt some folk believed them and thought me a fraud. Bloody annoying...
So, if you cant do well thought out reviews, then, as they say in the Bambi film, 'dont say nothing at all'.
Biased doesn’t mean wrong
Here’s a key point: because some opinion is biased doesn’t mean its wrong. Often when some left wing newspaper makes X point, someone in the comments say ‘Another biased article from The Guardian!’ etc, and they seem to think that therefore the article has pretty much been proven wrong. but it’s not. For example, i dont like beer, I’ve never liked the taste. If i say ‘Drinking a lot of beer is unhealthy’ then someone who likes beer makes say ‘You are biased, we know you don’t like beer.’
Correct, I don’t - but that doesn’t make beer healthy.