Tag Archives: internet

Internet Taste Gurus

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From magazines to the internet, everywhere has been chock-a-block full of advice on the top 10 of everything, holidays wishlists, and best of 2008 items. Everyone seems to have an opinion on what you should read, see, or listen to. But whose taste do you trust?

There are the standard cultural institutions, of course. The New York Times Book Review, for example, is a list of books in 2008 that might not be exactly to my interest, but is sure to be interesting and well-written. But they get the easy ones, so to speak, the obvious ones of good sales and pedigrees. Rarely do I chance upon a great novel off the beaten track of New York Times highlights; I need guidance. Guidance appears in abundance but, honestly, it rarely proves helpful.

What I want are the sort of recommendations my friends give me. I have a friend with great music suggestions, and another with interesting views on the literary classics. I don’t understand why it proves so much harder to find those types of recommendations on the internet, which swarms with people and opinions. People broadcast their voice on everything, but I can’t seem to find a voice who speaks to mine quite as clearly as an old friend.

The question is: how do I find people with tastes I respect and admire on the internet? Chance and blog searches seem inefficient methods. I assume people like the ones I rely on in person are out there. But where are you people?

Sam Leith defend books, I applaud

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An uplifting and moral article by Sam Leith, the Literary Editor of The Daily Telegraph, a UK newspaper. In “Grand Theft Auto, Twitter and Beowulf all demonstrate that stories will never die,” he defends the strength of the narrative in human culture to the delight of all writers and readers, with emphasis on the unfair attack on books by proponents of modern technology who feel books are antiquary repositories of knowledge.

Knowledge and stories come in many shapes and forms. My personal favorite form is a book, and not at all because I’m trying to write one. In anything, I’d say the book form and I have developed a healthy antagonism for just that reason. But the power of the narrative in its classic form is something I consider obvious.
I blog, but I by no means use this platform as write a long story. I use it to connect to other short pieces and to combine word with images and videos. It communicates in a different way by its medium, which is the point, I fancy, of Leith’s piece, which I encourage all with old-fashioned bookish tastes to read.
In a twist on this, check out Pepys’ Diary in online blog format, where each entry in the diary of Samual Pepys from the 1600s is posted daily, so you can follow his story in much the fashion it was written.