Monday, June 23, 2008

In Flight Reading

Tonight, while waiting for my flight to arrive in Islip, I perused the shelves of the travel mart and walked away with two finds. One was The Atlantic, this month with a headline of, "Is Google making us Stoopid?" by Nicholas Carr, who wrote The Big Switch: Rewiring the Word from Edison to Google. The magazine was a must buy and the article takes a good look at how our brains are being rewired (perhaps) to read shorter pieces, to skim the War and Peace novels we may have once read. The other purchase was My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. Cohort members will remember her as the effective presenter who used the real human brain in the Garr Reynolds presentation. I was very impressed with Jill, and having a daughter who has a brain injury, and family members who have experienced stroke, I am very interested in how she says she healed her brain in the eight years since her stroke. There was one more book that I had my eye on. It was Deirdre Breakenridge's new book: PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences. Her website is: http://www.deirdrebreakenridge.com/. She has a lot to say that ties in with our class. Winding down now from the big New York weekend where my twin great-nieces were Christened. Thank goodness for delays and airport travel marts.

2 comments:

BarbsBlog said...

Lori,
Thanks for your reading recommendations. Radio talk show hosts were discussing the "Google Makes You Stupid" article. Because we have been readers and are coming to Google as people who read, I don't think we have anything to worry about do you?

Our students on the other hand seem satisfied with finding the information, not reading, analyzing, and absorbing it...

Happy Trails, Barb

BloggieDoggie said...

Hi Barb,
I wish I could agree with you about the reading! I am finding it harder to read the long books I used to read. Finding it easier to pick up the magazine articles and shorter books. I hope I haven't lost my ability to read Jane Eyre! I found the article a little scary. As an aside, I saw my Dad today and guess what-he just bought the Stroke book yesterday. It's funny that we both have the same reading lists!