...Hangin' On to a Great Read!

Teaser Tuesday is back, although I'm holding off on lending two sentences from the book I'm reading. At the rate I'm going, still 300 and some odd pages left to go (of a 500+ page book), that by the time I'm finished I could very well end up reprinting the entire book... right here on my blog, and that just would not be cool.

But there's absolutely nothing like it...hangin on to a great read! I'm utterly immersed in this story. And just in case the caption wasn't a good enough clue, it's Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin that I'm reading. Unlike some of the other finance and business books I've read, Sorkin's account is longer and slightly different in the way it's written. Initially I was thinking a novel, but have since changed my position on that thought. This is definitely journalism. However, what's slightly different about this book, from books such as 'The Wrong Answer Faster' by Michael Goodkin and 'The Smartest Guys in the Room' by McLean and Elkind, is in its detail. One focused more so on 'the game', the other on a key character, while Too Big to Fail incorporates more focus on layers of players, plus the book is a couple hundred pages longer. In a way, this book would then seem the easiest to breeze through, except I'm really enjoying the storytelling; again wholly absorbed by the picture emerging, filming this vein intrinsically connecting them all.

That shared, makes this an appropriate place to slip in a few thoughts (on a serious note) about technology advancing at its current pace.

Creativity and raw ingenuity earn my deepest respect. It's the one aspect about books that used to really amaze me, wondering how authors did it... handwriting pages and pages of text, and assembling what I envisioned to be hundreds of loose pages, into one fluid novel. When I first sat down (behind a typewriter), toying with a novel idea, I quickly assessed it would be a major undertaking. I kept running out of those little square correction packets, and then kept losing my place after I resorted to typing streams of xxx's over lines I wanted to change. There just wasn't enough correction fluid, paper, typing ribbon, or energy to get through ten pages, let alone hundreds.

So, let the record forever reflect, when I first got my hands on a Word Processor, I was singing very high notes for its creator. My nails didn't break getting stuck between the keys, and I could backspace and erase lines I wanted to change. Still needed ribbon to print, and the screen was quite small, and not as bright and clear as my first PC, but this was far better than the typewriter.

What I'm saying here is there was a need to enhance the functions of a typewriter. Of course too, and I hear a few family members laughing, if I had to, I'm sure I would have eventually found a way to handwrite my novels, and likely would have become quite adept at doing so. But for the record, I was totally on board with the Word Processor, and later with the PC.

As such, any hesitation, or dragging my feet on being everywhere technology is, has to do with convenience crossing over to what I'm calling obsession... to the point where this fixation becomes excessive. For example, let's take food, our greatest necessity. Despite being unable to elaborate on the technology advancements that have enhanced the quality, and quantity of food, I can say I know all too well what happens when I become obsessed with food. This is where I am with technology... trying to keep my fixations balanced... in which coming from a time where I once faced a typewriter it's not overly difficult to see which technologies (for my need) are clearly obsessive. 

Other Interesting Sources on Reading and Book Technologies:

Richard Russo novel not for sale as e-book. 

E-books are for porn but real books will survive, says award-winning author.

How fast do you read? (How about a 'reading comprehension' calculator?) 

Soon There Will Be No More Shelves of Books & CDs.

Why do some people prefer physical books over digital alternatives?

E-Book Dilemma? Physical Books Make it Easier for You to Remember What You Read.

Is the future of physical book publishing the same as the future of reading and writing?