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Object Lessons
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
Do you feel your consciousness, your attention, and your intelligence (not to mention your eyesight) being sucked away, byte by byte, in a deadening tsunami of ill-composed blather, corporate groupthink, commercial come-ons, and other meaningless internet flotsam? Do your work life and your social life, hideously conjoined in your inbox, drag each other down in a surreal cycle of neverending reposts, appointments, and deadlines?
Sometime in the mid-1990s, we began, often with some trepidation, to enroll for a service that promised to connect us-electronically and efficiently-to our friends and lovers, our bosses and merchants. If it seemed at first like simply a change in scale (our mail would be faster, cheaper, more easily distributed to large groups), we now realize that email entails a more fundamental alteration in our communicative consciousness. Despite its fading relevance in the lives of the younger generation in the face of an ever-changing array of apps and media, email is probably here to stay, for better or worse.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
Do you feel your consciousness, your attention, and your intelligence (not to mention your eyesight) being sucked away, byte by byte, in a deadening tsunami of ill-composed blather, corporate groupthink, commercial come-ons, and other meaningless internet flotsam? Do your work life and your social life, hideously conjoined in your inbox, drag each other down in a surreal cycle of neverending reposts, appointments, and deadlines?
Sometime in the mid-1990s, we began, often with some trepidation, to enroll for a service that promised to connect us-electronically and efficiently-to our friends and lovers, our bosses and merchants. If it seemed at first like simply a change in scale (our mail would be faster, cheaper, more easily distributed to large groups), we now realize that email entails a more fundamental alteration in our communicative consciousness. Despite its fading relevance in the lives of the younger generation in the face of an ever-changing array of apps and media, email is probably here to stay, for better or worse.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
- GenresNonfictionTechnology
184 pages, Paperback
Published September 19, 2019
2 people are currently reading
70 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 30, 2024
This is a short book in the ongoing Object Lessons series. Each book is focused on one topic and the books vary on how the author approaches the subject.
For this book on email the author stayed very close to the subject and made it quite entertaining as well. There was so much humor in this book, it was a delight to read this.
One of the best chapters was called Junk. Yes, it is about that unwanted spam, but written well. That chapter alone was worth the read, and quite short. It’s one of the shorter ones, not quite two pages long.
The author shows bias towards this necessary form of communication, but not entirely likely it. There are many examples of why there is a dislike, such as how easily overwhelming it can be by the immediacy of contacting anyone at any time. He also contrasts to what is no longer done, the writing of physical letters and what was lost in that.
And yet, it seems the goal of the book was to make the reader look at email in a new light. And it did that for me, so I’d say this was a success.
Book rating: 4.5 stars
For this book on email the author stayed very close to the subject and made it quite entertaining as well. There was so much humor in this book, it was a delight to read this.
One of the best chapters was called Junk. Yes, it is about that unwanted spam, but written well. That chapter alone was worth the read, and quite short. It’s one of the shorter ones, not quite two pages long.
The author shows bias towards this necessary form of communication, but not entirely likely it. There are many examples of why there is a dislike, such as how easily overwhelming it can be by the immediacy of contacting anyone at any time. He also contrasts to what is no longer done, the writing of physical letters and what was lost in that.
And yet, it seems the goal of the book was to make the reader look at email in a new light. And it did that for me, so I’d say this was a success.
Book rating: 4.5 stars
March 24, 2020
A fun little exploration of many facets of an interface we often take for granted. Sometimes Malamud uncovers intriguing metaphors, historical connections, or anecdotes. At other times, he's just free associating, quoting dictionaries and Wikipedia, or making not-so-brilliant puns. I'm not sorry I read it, but I'm not sorry that it isn't any longer.
November 21, 2019
This is a short and surprisingly entertaining treatise on email -- its history, its functions and its foibles.
February 16, 2021
Julian Assange, John McCain and Umberto Eco shared a disdain for email. Would Henry David Thoreau have found a place in their club? Over 150 years ago, he observed that “we are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine to Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.” If that sums up your feelings on the topic, check out Email by Randy Malamud to trace the history of modern communication from the telegraph to Kathy Acker’s erotic email correspondence I’m Very Into You, Adaobi Nwaubani’s novel of Nigerian email scams I Do Not Come to You By Chance and a mailbag of equally diverting epistolary stops in between.
April 18, 2020
Hilarious and witty insights from an English professor on this modern and ubiquitous form of communication.
April 23, 2023
My dude really doesn't like email 🙃
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews