Silicon Valley Reads Kick Off 2014 Impressions

I read and listen to plenty of material, but I do not read books as often as I would want given my media library. When I noticed in the San Jose Mercury News that a community reading program kickoff event was in my area, I was intrigued. I headed to the Campbell Heritage Theater last week to find out what the annual program’s theme was for 2014 and why they were spotlighting two books in particular. I left the event with a new appreciation of the effects of technology and two more books to add to my reading list.

This year, Silicon Valley Reads focuses on books, technology, and how the two interact. A mostly full auditorium watched San Jose Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy talk with Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, and Robin Sloan, writer of Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore. Topics ranged from the inspirations for the books, how online lives are transforming human relationships, and if Steve Jobs is the reason for how our brains are changing the processing of data. Carr had been thinking about how his own engagement with writing related to time he spent on the computer, so he wrote a whole book on it. In contrast, Sloan got the idea for his book from a friend’s Twitter post. Sloan noted how, because his book is fiction, he can interweave between the real and invented, allowing his readers to see concepts or companies in the book and then check Google to see if they actually exist.

The discussion also related to the advertisements about he kickoff decently enough. Cassidy asked the two authors to explain how they think their books related. According to Sloan, the interesting stories arise from our interactions with technology, so changes in devices just change the drama in our existence.  Carr thought his book is a meditation on different styles of thinking and being to bring together the computer for electronic reading and the printer for physical material reading. Both authors agreed that printed books would stick around with ebooks existing alongside them as audiobooks came and settled into the literary market. Carr expressed doubts of long term social impacts of online materials, and Sloan mentioned that touchscreens as we know them today are so new that we do not know where they are going. I even learned some useful information, as I might want to use Freedom, a program that shuts off the internet for a period of time and is what Sloan uses to keep from succumbing to the myriad distractions on the web. Maybe if I used it I would be more productive in my writing and academic work.

After discovering the event in the newspaper, I was glad I attended. I found out about a fiction book and a nonfiction book that tackled our interactions with technology. Both are now on my reading list, and I expect one day to review them on my blog. It’s the least I could go after getting signed copies from the author and their web contact information for later use.

Silicon Valley Reads Website