"When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage ... which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me." — W. Somerset Maugham

From: 25 Hour Books

Never. Mind. Reading. Mind. Never. Reading.

Photo: Storesonline

"... However, readers who pick up Nineteen Eighty-Four because of the current worries over the Prism programme would be wrong just to see it as a novel about the dangers of overweening technology.
     The all-seeing telescreen in the corner of the room is an important device for allowing the state to exercise control, but Orwell's real concern is about far more insidious threats to liberty. The Big Brother state aims at nothing less than the control of language and thought. According to the slogans repeated by the Ministry of Truth, 'War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.' Deprive people of the words with which to resist, and you will crush resistance.
     In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith's defining act of rebellion is to keep a diary, to attempt to record his thoughts and feelings accurately – not easy when the expressions you need have been obliterated or perverted. The greatest inhibition, to use Senator [Bernie] Sanders's word, is mental rather than physical."

— The Guardian
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"German, British and Japanese scientists were able to 'read minds' using sophisticated functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) and computer programs.
     Current Biology reported people were asked to think about adding or subtracting — scientists were able to read intentions in 70% of cases….
     Professor Colin Blakemore, director of the Medical Research Council, said: 'We shouldn't go overboard about the power of these technologies at the moment.
     'But what you can be absolutely sure of is that these will continue to roll out and we will have more and more ability to probe people's intentions, minds, background thoughts, hopes and emotions.' He added: 'Some of that is extremely desirable, because it will help with diagnosis, education and so on, but we need to be thinking the ethical issues through.'"
— BBC News
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For what it's worth

Gutenberg Bible: a complete first edition is worth
US $25-$35 million (from: Luxist)

What's a novel for? A short story? A poem? And what are they worth?
     In an age where stuff is cheap — in the 1976 Eaton's catalogue (like Sears in the U.S.)  the cheapest colour TV (14") was $399.99. That's $1,270.14 in today's dollars; on March 19, 1984 a Proctor-Silex toaster was on sale at K-Mart for $22.88; again, in todays money: $39.82). A toaster at Walmart now costs about $15.00.
     Life is cheap, too. We are all too familiar with the lot of factory workers throughout the developing world and here in North America (Bangladesh is in the news right now, finally); the resurgence of slavery and human trafficking.
     And then there's the factory in China, Foxconn, that makes iPhones and other high-end electronic goods banning their workers from committing suicide.
      In Honduras, "There is a violent death every 74 minutes... and the country has a murder rate more than four times higher than Mexico." according to an article on the BBC News Magazine website.
     In an age where everything has been devalued, except for the absolute essentials like food and fossil fuels, is it any wonder that authors of fiction can't make any money?
     Never mind poets, and writers of so-called "literature." Granted, some novelists strike it rich and become millionaires, billionaires; but these occurrences are as anomalous as winning the lottery or gazing upon the proverbial blue moon.
     So, to answer the question... questions: Entertainment, then — that's why we do it; we're like court jesters — distraction, that's what we're for: the slaking of humankind's craving for escape, to suffer along with some made-up character: catharsis.
     But, you say, TV shows, computer games, the Internet, music, the theatre and movies do all that. Look at shows like "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad," and movies like "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," and "The King's Speech," to name a few. That's where the money is — for people who want to tell stories in this day and age. We must all become screenwriters and cast out lot with hordes of taxi drivers and waiters and dog walkers in L.A. who live their lives waiting for the "ka-ching" of success.
     All things considered, especially in light of the heart-warming news in the first few paragraphs of this post, I guess we should count ourselves lucky even to have the opportunity to write.
     Now I'm really depressed; or at best, just lost for words.
— Michael Hale

"messy, dangerous and jittery"

Cigarette card from the Nineteenth Century: Steampunk Skype (From: The Sun)

“‘The future,’ science fiction guru Arthur C. Clarke once said, ‘isn’t what it used to be.’ A clever, ironic statement, superficially quite ridiculous of course, containing nevertheless two nuggets of wisdom for the price of one. Because what the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey was talking about, naturally, was futurology, the fusion of informed scientific analysis and inspired guesswork about the future at which he has excelled for over fifty years.”

— Jonathan Margolis (from A Brief History of Tomorrow) via Apostrophe Books
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"As I read through the novel again [Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem] – first published in 1971 – I am struck how much less surreal the setting seems when viewed in the context of today’s messy, dangerous and jittery world. […]
     Such scenes are strongly reminiscent of recent events in Tripoli, Cairo, Tunis and especially Toronto. At least we can take comfort that the powers that be haven’t (yet) employed psychotropic agents to resolve any confrontations, such as deploying LTN (Love Thy Neighbour) bombs dropped by military aircraft – as occurs in the novel. Of course, chemical weapons, even when non lethal, have a habit of making dangerous situations deadly. In The Futurological Congress, the LTN bombs initially induce a loving, calming effect on the revolutionaries – at least until the fumes begin to affect the police […]"
— Jürgen Zimmermann, Sumsphere
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Immersion Therapy

Most people can’t, or at least don’t, read a 925-page book in a couple of nights. In fact, if you happen to have any of the following: (i) a television, (ii) access to the Internet, (iii) one or more children, (iv) regular bathing habits, or (v) gainful employment in a job where your responsibilities do not include getting paid to read books, it would probably be difficult to finish a book this long in a week, or even two. Life just gets in the way. For argument’s sake, let’s assume it would be closer to a month, a month in which a typical person might take 30 showers, eat 90 meals, spend maybe 200 hours at work. [...]
      This kind of world-shifting is possible with Haruki Murakami’s new novel [1Q84] (originally published in Japan in serial form as three books), which opens with Aomame, a young woman living in Tokyo, stuck in traffic, in a taxi, on the highway. The year is 1984, and Aomame is very late for work, which is a big deal, given that Aomame is no accountant or lawyer, but rather a contract killer specializing in the murder of men who abuse their wives. On the advice of the cab driver, Aomame decides that it would be a good idea to walk along the shoulder of the highway, and climb down an emergency stairway in order to get down into the subway station and to her assignment on time. Only, when Aomame emerges from the stairway, she picks up on subtle hints (the cut of a policeman’s uniform is slightly different, the firearm he is carrying is a different model) that her shortcut may have been an exit in more ways than one. The world has shifted, or perhaps she has shifted between worlds. In the words of Aomame’s cryptic cab driver, 'things are not what they seem.' [...]
     The novel is strongest when it sticks to its most powerful idea, the one implied by its title: the world as a kind of question. Early on in the book, Tengo thinks to himself that the role of a story is, 'in the broadest terms, to transpose a single problem into another form.' Murakami starts with the problem, what is real? and he transposes it into another form, an entire world, slightly revised. Murakami’s 925-page novel seems to be suggesting that, when you get down to it, the key to the question is love.”
— Charles Yu, Los Angeles Review of Books
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