From the most recent New York Review of Books comes this wonderful essay on the Future of Publishing:

“Though Gutenberg’s invention made possible our modern world with all its wonders and woes, no one, much less Gutenberg himself, could have foreseen that his press would have this effect. And no one today can foresee except in broad and sketchy outline the far greater impact that digitization will have on our own future. With the earth trembling beneath them, it is no wonder that publishers with one foot in the crumbling past and the other seeking solid ground in an uncertain future hesitate to seize the opportunity that digitization offers them to restore, expand, and promote their backlists to a decentralized, worldwide marketplace…

“The resistance today by publishers to the onrushing digital future does not arise from fear of disruptive literacy, but from the understandable fear of their own obsolescence and the complexity of the digital transformation that awaits them, one in which much of their traditional infrastructure and perhaps they too will be redundant ...

“Digitization makes possible a world in which anyone can claim to be a publisher and anyone can call him- or herself an author. In this world the traditional filters will have melted into air and only the ultimate filter—the human inability to read what is unreadable—will remain to winnow what is worth keeping in a virtual marketplace where Keats’s nightingale shares electronic space with Aunt Mary’s haikus. That the contents of the world’s libraries will eventually be accessed practically anywhere at the click of a mouse is not an unmixed blessing. Another click might obliterate these same contents and bring civilization to an end: an overwhelming argument, if one is needed, for physical books in the digital age.”

It’s the end of the year and I think it’s time to throw my choice into the “best-of” mix. My choice this year is The Evolution of God by Robert Wright. I wouldn’t necessarily call it the best book of the year, or my favorite. But I am calling it my book of the year for its bold attempt to tackle a big idea. I have greatly admired all of Wright’s work; he writes those big-idea books that incorporate data and theories from across many fields of study.

Althought I don’t think any book or author can have the final say on religion, science and society, this book creates a unique framework for future study of how religion and culture evolved over the centuries. Wright builds on themes that he explores in some of his earlier books, primarily that of Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny--the idea that people enter relationships that are of mutual benefit. Does he come to a final conclussion as to whether he believes in God, or that God is a creation and function of societies? Maybe both. Here is how author ?? describes the book in this recent and thorough review of the book in the New York Review of Books:

“Wright thus offers what he emphasizes is a materialist account of religion. As he further emphasizes, the ways in which religion responds to the world make sense. Like organisms, religions respond adaptively to the world. More formally, Wright argues that religious responses to reality are generally explained by game theory and evolutionary psychology, the subjects of his previous books. Subtle aspects of the human mind, he claims, were shaped by Darwinian natural selection to allow us to recognize and take advantage of certain social situations. The most important of these—and the centerpiece of Wright’s theory—are what game theorists call non-zero-sum interactions. Unlike zero-sum games, wherein one player’s gain is another player’s loss, in some games both players can win; hence “non-zero-sum.” The classic example is economic trade. In a free market, trade occurs when both parties benefit from exchange (otherwise they wouldn’t engage in it) ...

“One consequence of the growing number of non-zero-sum interactions was that, through time, the “moral circle” expanded. While primitive man tended to view only his clan or tribe as fully human and so worthy of moral consideration, the ties forged among peoples via their cooperative interactions encouraged them to expand the moral circle from tribe, to ethnic group, to nation, and ultimately to all human beings.”

A fun article. In England, a phone booth has found new life as perhaps the world’s smallest library. From the BBC: “Villagers from Westbury-sub-Mendip in Somerset can use the library around the clock, selecting books, DVDs and CDs. Users simply stock it with a book they have read, swapping it for one they have not.

“It’s really taken off. The books are constantly changing,” said parish councillor Bob Dolby. He added: “It is completely full at the moment with books. Anyone is free to come and take a book and leave one that you have already read. “This facility has turned a piece of street furniture into a community service in constant use.”

"A few years ago, writing about the book business and how dumbed down and craven books had become—and pathetic, designed only to sell and then not selling—I wrote the line “books suck,” subjecting me to much middlebrow opprobrium.” So writes Michael Wolff in a recent article titled, Books are Bad for You.

Wolff writes about a specific type of book really (not all of them are bad for you; at least that’s what I think he is saying). It’s the book as political statement, or public relations scheme. (Sarah Palin’s book as exhibit A), instead of an honest, researched account. It’s that genre of nonfiction meant to say that this is the world as I wish it to be rather than this is the world as it is that has Wolff so upset. It’s books that aren’t even written by the “author” that really gets under his skin.

“It’s a sleight of hand. A bait and switch. It’s not that there is anything wrong, or at least out of the ordinary, with salesmanship or promotional copy, or with even saying you wrote what your ghostwriter wrote. This is the stuff of speeches, advertising, and testimonials. What’s insidious here is that these forms, which are understood to be insincere and a confection, are now in the guise of a book, which is understood to be genuine and substantial.”

The New York Times recently ran this story on rare book collections that are more accessible than one might first think. I love touring libraries and rare book collections when I get the chance during a trip. Some of these locations are not far from home.

One example: The Linda Hall Library, located in Kansas City. For those who enjoy the history of science, as I do, their special collections includes copy of The Starry Messenger, “the revelatory book in which Galileo detailed his astronomical observations made with his own “spyglass” — the instrument that would later be known as the telescope.

From the Times story: “Treat it with care,” Mr. Bradley (director of science special collections) said as he gently handed me the library’s first edition, one of the more than 500 initially printed in Latin as “Sidereus Nuncius.” The library paid $38,000 for the book in 1988 — at the time the costliest book the library had ever bought. But it’s hardly the only jewel in a collection of 500,000 books, journals and pamphlets that make this private library among the largest science libraries in the world. Also in its stacks are Isaac Newton’s “Principia,” the 1687 book that presented his laws of gravity, and Copernicus’s 1543 “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres,” among other noteworthy works.

Here are some of the other museums that are highlighted in this Cultured Traveler piece:

The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library (2520 Cimarron Street, Los Angeles; 323-731-8529; http://www.humnet.ucla.edu) is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.

The Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology (5109 Cherry Street, Kansas City, Mo.; 816-363-4600; http://www.lindahall.org). Hours vary.

The Library Company of Philadelphia (1314 Locust Street; 215-546-3181; http://www.librarycompany.org) is open 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. on weekdays.

The New York Academy of Medicine Library (1216 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street; 212-822-7321; http://www.nyam.org) is open by appointment 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Friday.

The Rosenbach Museum and Library (2008-2010 DeLancey Place, Philadelphia; 215-732-1600; http://www.rosenbach.org). Hours vary.

I just finished reading a wonderful “memoir” about the writer’s life. I say that in quotes because the book is not a typical memoir but rather a collection of essays written by the author and pubished as a column in The Times Supplement. The book is called “Beg, Borrow, Steal: the Writer’s Life,” written by Michael Greenberg. In wonderful bite-sized pieces, Greenberg, who never went to college or formally studied literature or journalism, chronicles his journey through heartache and setbacks to become a writer. He’s a very good writer and I highly recommend it.

Here are some comments from another review, written by Adam Kirsch in Tablet: “Greenberg undoubtedly belongs in a book by Saul Bellow. “As I saw it, the real sacrifice was on the part of those who had to toe the line and forswear a free-style existence,” Greenberg writes of his adolescent self, cleverly alluding both to the title of his column and to that famous freelance, Augie March: “’First to knock, first admitted,’ in Saul Bellow’s words. ‘Sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent.’” Following this creed, Greenberg never went to college, choosing instead to run away from home as a teenager, then prowl New York and the world in search of the writer’s elixir, experience. Yet in Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writer’s Life—the terrific new collection of Greenberg’s “Freelance” columns, just published by Other Press—he is mainly concerned to show the downside of experience. The book is a chronicle, not of failure exactly, but of constant struggle—against the slipperiness of the writer’s vocation, against the psychological burdens of family and Jewishness, but most straightforwardly, as the title suggests, the struggle just to earn a living.”

I have posted about this new technology before, but it seems like it is now ready for retail. The Espresso Insta-Book machine has made its debut in Boston. The machine is able to produce a copy of any book, on site, in a library quality paperback format. The process only takes four minutes. Noted author E.L. Doctorow will be on hand for the unveiling at the Harvard Bookstore. From the LA Times:

The first book to roll of the press, so to speak, is a copy of “Facsimile of First Edition of The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre,” which happens to be the first every book that was printed in the American colonies, in Cambridge in 1640. I think that’s a nice touch.

It may have taken more than four decades, but the world’s largest English language thesaurus has finally been completed. Work on The Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1965, and according to this story in the Times, the project has survived fire, funding challenges and the need for constant updates, to only name a few of the many challenges it faced. After 44 years this labour of love is finally ready to be published.

The Times: “With 800,000 meanings for 600,000 words organised into more than 230,000 categories and subcategories, the thesaurus is twice the size of Roget’s version. It contains almost the entire vocabulary of English, from Old English to the present day, giving a unique insight into the development of the language.

“The project began 44 years ago with Michael Samuels, then Professor of English Language at the University of Glasgow. Several of the project’s founders have since died.” One of the current editorsfirst began work on the project during the late 1960s, when she was just 27. She’s now 69 years old. 

Isn’t it true that all book lovers want a wonderful library. Just for curiosity’s sake, I did a quick Google search to see who in fact might have the greatest personal library. One name immediately popped up: Jay Walker, founder of Walker Digital. His three-level, 3,600-square-feet llibrary includes an actual Sputnik sattlelite, fossils and other artifacts, and several rare volumes including a 1535Coverdale Bible (the first translated into English). Wow.

There’s more detail here in this 2008 article from Wired.

I’ve got a new book on order, which should arrive next week. It’s called The Evolution of God, written by Robert Wright. Wright is an author who writes about science and culture whose books I’ve enjoyed very much: Nonzero and The Moral Animal in particular. This new book sounds very interesting, and perhaps a bit controversial. It’s about how society’s idea of God changes over time. The Atlantic excerpted a part of the book in the April 2009 issue: One World, Under God. Robert Wright is currently a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. He is also the founder of Bloggingheads.tv, a wonderful site for frank discussion about current issues, science and politics. Here is an excerpt from The Atlantic article that gets to the heart of what Wright will descuss in the forthcoming book: “In any event, whether or not history has a purpose, its moral direction is hard to deny. Since the Stone Age, the scope of social organization has expanded, from hunter-gatherer society through city-state through empire and beyond. And often this expansion has entailed the extension of mutual understanding across bounds of ethnicity, religion, or nationality. Indeed, it turns out that formative periods in both Islam and Judaism evince the same dynamic as early Christianity: an imperial, multiethnic milieu winds up fostering a tolerance of other ethnicities and faiths.”

Here is Publisher’ Weekly’s description of the book, which has been 10 years in the making: “In his illuminating book, The Moral Animal, Wright introduced evolutionary psychology and examined the ways that the morality of individuals might be hard-wired by nature rather than influenced by culture. With this book, he expands upon that work, turning now to explore how religion came to define larger and larger groups of people as part of the circle of moral consideration. Using a naïve and antiquated approach to the sociology and anthropology of religion, Wright expends far too great an effort covering well-trod territory concerning the development of religions from “primitive” hunter-gatherer stages to monotheism. He finds in this evolution of religion, however, that the great monotheistic (he calls them “Abrahamic,” a term not favored by many religion scholars) religions-Christianity, Islam, Judaism-all contain a code for the salvation of the world. Using game theory, he encourages individuals in these three faiths to embrace a non-zero-sum relationship to other religions, seeing their fortunes as positively correlated and interdependent and then acting with tolerance toward other religions. Regrettably, Wright’s lively writing unveils little that is genuinely new or insightful about religion.”