{"title":"Sven Birkerts","description":"\u003cp\u003eExplore the insightful essays and cultural critiques of Sven Birkerts. Delve into the impact of technology on modern life, literature, and the human experience. Perfect for readers of cultural commentary.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"gutenberg-elegies-book-sven-birkerts-9780571198498","title":"The Gutenberg Elegies","description":"Discussing in personal and cultural terms the values of reading, and examining what may be lost as society turns towards CD-ROM, hypertext and audio books, the critic Sven Birkerts offers a defence of the place of reading and the printed word in the face of rapid technological advances.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49506523316497,"sku":"GOR005374291","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49639262552337,"sku":"GOR006613253","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50478687060241,"sku":"CIN057119849XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51352633639185,"sku":"CIN057119849XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52461246284049,"sku":"CIN057119849XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/057119849X.jpg?v=1751392131"},{"product_id":"changing-the-subject-book-sven-birkerts-9781555977214","title":"Changing the Subject","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrenchant, expansive essays on the cultural consequences of ongoing, all-permeating technological innovation\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn 1994, Sven Birkerts published\u003ci\u003eThe Gutenberg Elegies\u003c\/i\u003e, his celebrated rallying cry to resist the oncoming digital advances, especially those that might affect the way we read literature and experience art--the very cultural activities that make us human.\u003cbr\u003e After two decades of rampant change, Birkerts has allowed a degree of everyday digital technology into his life. He refuses to use a smartphone, but communicates via e-mail and spends some time reading online. In\u003ci\u003eChanging the Subject\u003c\/i\u003e, he examines the changes that he observes in himself and others--the distraction when reading on the screen; the loss of personal agency through reliance on GPS and one-stop information resources; an increasing acceptance of \"hive\" behaviors. \"An unprecedented shift is underway,\" he argues, and \"this transformation is dramatically accelerated and more psychologically formative than any previous technological innovation.\" He finds solace in engagement with art, particularly literature, andhe brilliantly describes the countering energy available to us through acts of sustained attention, even as he worries that our increasingly mediated existences are not conducive to creativity.\u003cbr\u003e It is impossible to read\u003ci\u003eChanging the Subject\u003c\/i\u003e without coming away with a renewed sense of what is lost by our wholesale acceptance of digital innovation and what is regained when we immerse ourselves in a good book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49550267351313,"sku":"GOR007232113","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49941601419537,"sku":"CIN1555977219G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50270927782161,"sku":"CIN1555977219VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1555977219.jpg?v=1750760899"},{"product_id":"readings-book-sven-birkerts-9781555972837","title":"Readings","description":"Combining the best of Sven Birkert's dazzling literary criticism with vital new essays. Here is Birkerts the literary critic in top form, discussing authors ranging from Elizabeth Bishop to Don DeLillo and topics ranging from biography to the enigma of poetic inspiration. A brilliant cultural commentator, Birkerts also offers important insights into contemporary nostalgia, our modern sense of time and the future of the creative spirit.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49603438674193,"sku":"GOR010213420","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50425316704529,"sku":"CIN1555972837G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51695423783185,"sku":"CIN1555972837VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1555972837.jpg?v=1751212732"},{"product_id":"gutenberg-elegies-book-sven-birkerts-9780571190454","title":"The Gutenberg Elegies","description":"Discussing in personal and cultural terms the values of reading, and examining what may be lost as society turns towards CD-ROM, hypertext and audio books, the critic Sven Birkerts, whose essays and reviews have appeared in \"The New York Times Book Review\", \"The Atlantic\" and \"Harper's\", offers a defence of the place of reading and the printed word in the face of rapid technological advances. He argues that we are living in a state of intellectual emergency - an emergency caused by our willingness to embrace new technologies at the expense of the printed word. As we rush to get on-line, as we make the transition from book to screen, we are turning against some of the core premises of humanization. The printed page and the circuit-driven information technologies are not related - for Birkerts they represent fundamentally opposed forces, and in their inevitable confrontation our deepest values will be tested.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49637769183505,"sku":"GOR008996653","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51873909244177,"sku":"GOR001367655","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0571190456.jpg?v=1751441973"},{"product_id":"art-of-time-in-memoir-book-sven-birkerts-9781555974893","title":"The Art Of Time In Memoir","description":"Memoir is, for better and often for worse, the genre of our times,' Birkerts writes. This piece of elegant literary criticism seeks to understand what makes some memoirs memorable and others self-serving. Birkerts argues that the memoirists strategies for presenting the subjective experience of time reveal the power and resonance of the writer's life. By examining Virginia Woolf's A Sketch of the Past, and Mary Karr's The Liars' Club, Birkerts describes the memoirists essential art of assembling patterns of meaning.'","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49852333228305,"sku":"CIN1555974899G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50405978505489,"sku":"CIN1555974899VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51918664827153,"sku":"NIN9781555974893","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52420482367761,"sku":"GOR008842207","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1555974899.jpg?v=1750958354"},{"product_id":"electric-life-book-sven-birkerts-9780688078614","title":"The Electric Life","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49890090647825,"sku":"CIN0688078613G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53231988244753,"sku":"CIN0688078613VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0688078613.jpg?v=1750847397"},{"product_id":"hazardous-materials-book-rob-schnepp-9780827379992","title":"Hazardous Materials","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50037410234641,"sku":"CIN0827379994G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0827379994.jpg?v=1751044065"},{"product_id":"other-walk-book-sven-birkerts-9781555975937","title":"The Other Walk","description":"In this deeply appealing and engaging collection of essays, Sven Birkerts looks back through his own life, as well as at the generations before him and ahead at the lives of his children. Through vignette-style meditations, Birkerts plunges readers into remembered incidents and resurfaces a few pages later with surprising and provocative new perspectives. Written for readers from all backgrounds, Birkerts' simple, clear prose beautifully depicts the scars, flaws, idiosyncrasies and fears many can relate to.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50061562773777,"sku":"GOR007681999","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50390761996561,"sku":"CIN1555975933G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53370894319889,"sku":"CIN1555975933VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1555975933.jpg?v=1751309543"},{"product_id":"writing-well-longman-classics-edition-book-donald-hall-9780321439017","title":"Writing Well, Longman Classics Edition","description":"Co-authored by two esteemed writers, Writing Well, is a beautifully-written and thoroughly readable guide to the craft of writing prose.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50102757785873,"sku":"CIN0321439015G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50348304105745,"sku":"CIN0321439015A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0321439015.jpg?v=1769687451"},{"product_id":"my-sky-blue-trades-book-sven-birkerts-9780142003091","title":"My Sky Blue Trades","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345550741777,"sku":"CIN0142003093G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51438082720017,"sku":"GOR005474497","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0142003093.jpg?v=1751425879"},{"product_id":"american-energies-book-sven-birkerts-9780688106126","title":"American Energies","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50360468242705,"sku":"CIN0688106129G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51747271278865,"sku":"CIN0688106129VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51825941152017,"sku":"CIN0688106129A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0688106129.jpg?v=1751137259"},{"product_id":"tolstoy-s-dictaphone-book-sven-birkerts-9781555972486","title":"Tolstoy's Dictaphone","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen the great Russian writer Tolstoy was first offered the use of a brand new invention called the Dictaphone, he refused it, saying that it was sure to be \"too dreadfully exciting\" and would distract him from his literary endeavors.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e For this provocative launch of the Graywolf Forum series, Sven Birkerts invited a number of literary writers to tell him how they were reacting to the technological innovatios of our day. Do the \"dreadful excitements\" promised by a digital future cause us to forfeit our time-honored cultural traditions for dubious gain? Or will the electronic millennium usher in an unprecedented age of interconnectedness and opportunities for wider communication?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In the tradition of the Graywolf Annuals, this first \u003ci\u003eGraywolf Forum\u003c\/i\u003e presents a wide range of responses from contemporary creative writers.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Contributors:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Sven Birkerts\u003cbr\u003e Harvey Blume\u003cbr\u003e Daniel Mark Epstein\u003cbr\u003e Jonathan Franzen\u003cbr\u003e Thomas Frick\u003cbr\u003e Alice Fulton\u003cbr\u003e Albert Goldbarth\u003cbr\u003e Carolyn Guyer\u003cbr\u003e Gerald Howard\u003cbr\u003e Wendy Lesser\u003cbr\u003e Ralph Lombreglia\u003cbr\u003e Carole Maso\u003cbr\u003e Askold Melnyczuk\u003cbr\u003e Robert Pinsky\u003cbr\u003e Wulf Rehder\u003cbr\u003e Lynne Sharon Schwartz\u003cbr\u003e Tom Sleigh\u003cbr\u003e Mark Slouka\u003cbr\u003e Paul West\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50716983918865,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50716984181009,"sku":"GOR006042750","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1555972489.jpg?v=1750958351"},{"product_id":"vladimir-nabokov-s-speak-memory-bookmarked-book-sven-birkerts-9781632461070","title":"Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory: Bookmarked","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Much more than an exercise in literary criticism, this short book increasingly reads as a profound, sensitive, insightful meditation on family, history, time, language, the nature of artistic inspiration, and, in the end, even the meaning of life.\"--OLGA GRUSHIN, author, \u003ci\u003eThe Dream Life of Sukhanov\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eForty Rooms\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eVladimir Nabokov's \u003ci\u003eSpeak, Memory\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the most critically acclaimed memoirs of the twentieth century.\u003c\/b\u003e In this classic account of his life, Nabokov writes about his idyllic Russian childhood in an aristocratic family, the Bolshevik revolution that led to his exile from Russia, and the path that would eventually lead him to live in America.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn the latest volume in Ig's Bookmarked series, celebrated author and critic Sven Birkerts writes about how \u003ci\u003eSpeak, Memory\u003c\/i\u003e not only intersects with various central life-concerns (exile, serendipity and coincidence, childhood, literary redemption), but is also vital to understanding the workings of memory in literature.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Birkerts reads Nabokov even as he allows Nabokov to read him. This is reading as high art, exhilarating and wise.\"--\u003cb\u003eCHRISTOPHER BENFEY,\u003c\/b\u003eauthor, \u003ci\u003eRed Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Like Nabokov's, Birkerts' book is both a nuanced excursion into the nature of memory and a reminder that reading and writing are acts of noticing. This is a supremely alert book about a supremely alert book.\"--\u003cb\u003eJOAN WICKERSHAM\u003c\/b\u003e, author, \u003ci\u003eThe Suicide Index\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50944530809105,"sku":"CIN1632461072A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51041408516369,"sku":"NIN9781632461070","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1632461072.jpg?v=1750960183"},{"product_id":"reading-life-book-sven-birkerts-9781555974640","title":"Reading Life","description":"Acclaimed critic Sven Birkets decided to reinvest himself in the books that formed the landmarks of his inner life. In his words, Reading, the mind's traffic in signs and signifiers, is the most dynamic, changeful and possibly transformational act we can imagine.' By returning to the light-posts which marked his formative years, Birkets dissects the foundations themselves, finding strange sediments of self: of time, of memory, of the forming and ever-changing processes of intellectual life.'","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50958531494161,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50958533034257,"sku":"CIN1555974643G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51681361133841,"sku":"GOR009534176","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1555974643.jpg?v=1751276085"},{"product_id":"otra-cosa-book-sven-birkerts-9789506419837","title":"A Otra Cosa","description":"Que la revoluci n digital es una de las m s cruciales de la historia de la humanidad ya no hay quien lo discuta. A tal punto ha modificado nuestra vida cotidiana que ya no podr amos pensarnos sin la asistencia de una pantalla, de un tel fono celular, del acceso a internet. Sven Birkets analiza en esta obra c mo la tecnolog a ha afectado nuestra capacidad de atenci n, nuestros impulsos creativos y nuestras relaciones con las dem s personas. Se sirve para ello de su experiencia personal y argumenta que, a pesar de las ventajas que supone acceder de inmediato a nuestras canciones y libros favoritos, lo que estamos sacrificando es la evidencia tangible de nuestros gustos y deseos. En este sentido, sostiene que el bombardeo virtual afecta, en  ltima instancia, nuestra capacidad creativa. Las consecuencias de este proceso parecen irreversibles, pero es de fundamental importancia identificarlas para poner en claro qu  ganamos y qu  perdemos en este proceso. Obra desafiante, concebida y escrita a contrapelo de las tendencias que nos sumergen de cabeza en una pantalla, A otra cosa propone un replanteo de nuestra relaci n con el mundo digital y defiende firmemente la importancia del arte para mantener viva nuestra atenci n -la atenci n en el sentido m s amplio, que se presta a la vida, al hecho de la vida, como prefiere redefinirla Birkerts-, al tiempo que postula cada acto de atenci n sostenida como un modo de contrarrestar los efectos m s nocivos de la virtualizaci n.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51105974845713,"sku":"NIN9789506419837","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52544612466961,"sku":"NLS9789506419837","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9506419833.jpg?v=1751223452"},{"product_id":"my-sky-blue-trades-book-sven-birkerts-9780670031092","title":"My Sky Blue Trades","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51416065704209,"sku":"CIN0670031097G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0670031097.jpg?v=1750880701"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-sven-birkerts.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}