LEADER 03358nam 2200637 450 001 9910149535903321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a1-351-53103-4 010 $a1-4128-6447-X 035 $a(CKB)3710000000934010 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC4785137 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL4785137 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr11329482 035 $a(OCoLC)960906127 035 $a(BIP)055803198 035 $a(EXLCZ)993710000000934010 100 $a20170124h20162016 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcnu|||||||| 181 $2rdacontent 182 $2rdamedia 183 $2rdacarrier 200 10$aBook matters $ethe changing nature of literacy /$fAlan Sica 210 1$aNew Brunswick, New Jersey ;$aLondon, England :$cTransaction Publishers,$d2016. 210 4$d2016 215 $a1 online resource (283 pages) 311 $a1-4128-6502-6 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 330 8 $aScholars have been puzzling over the "future of the book" since Marshall McLuhan's famous maxim "the medium is the message" in the early 1950s. McLuhan famously argued that electronic media was creating a global village in which books would become obsolete. Such views were ahead of their time, but today they are all too relevant as declining sales, even among classic texts, have become a serious matter in academic publishing. Does anyone still read long and complex works, either from the past or the present? Is the role of a professional reader and reviewer of manuscripts still relevant? Book Matters closely analyses these questions and others. Alan Sica surmises that the concentration span required for studying and discussing complex texts has slipped away, as undergraduate classes are becoming inundated by shorter, easier-to-teach scholarly and literary works. He considers such matters in part from the point of view of a former editor of scholarly journals. In an engaging style, he gives readers succinct analyses of books and ideas that once held the interest of millions of discerning readers, such as Simone de Beavoir's Second Sex and the works of David Graham Phillips and C. Wright Mills, among others. Book Matters is not a nostalgic cry for lost ideas, but instead a stark reminder of just how aware and analytically illuminating certain scholars were prior to the Internet, and how endangered the book is in this era of pixelated communication. 606 $aBooks and reading$xHistory 606 $aIntellectual life$xHistory 606 $aLearning and scholarship$xHistory 606 $aScholarly publishing$xHistory 606 $aCriticism$xHistory 606 $aSocial sciences$xHistory 610 $aBooks And Reading 610 $aIntellectual Life 610 $aLearning And Scholarship 610 $aLiterary Criticism 610 $aHistory 610 $aEducation 615 0$aBooks and reading$xHistory. 615 0$aIntellectual life$xHistory. 615 0$aLearning and scholarship$xHistory. 615 0$aScholarly publishing$xHistory. 615 0$aCriticism$xHistory. 615 0$aSocial sciences$xHistory. 676 $a028 700 $aSica$b Alan$f1949-$0129150 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910149535903321 996 $aBook matters$93420840 997 $aUNINA