May
30
2009
But it would make a lovely coaster.
A Kindle goes for $359.00 and plugs into a collection of 285,000 available titles, so out of curiosity I searched Amazon for the availability of the last $359.00 of books I’ve purchased to see if my obscure tastes could justify an investment in THE FUTURE OF THE BOOK AKA MANKIND’S BIGGEST LEAP FORWARD IN LIBERAL ENLIGHTENMENT SINCE THE PRINTING PRESS (or however the fuck they’re touting this thing).
Despite my habitual reflex to march in lock-step with the cool kid digerati trend-setters, it looks like I’ll be remaining a troglodyte for the foreseeable future:
- Georges Bataille, The Absence of Myth: Writings on Surrealism. $19.95. Unavailable.
- Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. $25.95. Unavailable.
- Terry Eagleton, Ideology. $20.00. Unavailable.
- Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History: Vols I-VI. $24.95. Unavailable.
- Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. $24.95. Unavailable.
- W.G. Sebald, Vertigo. $15.95. Unavailable.
- Fredric Jameson, The Ideologies of Theory. $44.95. Unavailable.
- Stéphane Mallarmé, Divagations. $18.95. Unavailable.
- Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate. $25.00. Available!
- Alain Badiou, The Logics of Worlds: Being and Event II. $29.95. Unavailable.
- Gustave Flaubert, Bouvard and Pécuchet. $13.95. Available!
- Alain Badiou, Conditions. $29.00. Unavailable.
- Marshall McLuhan, Unbound. $35.00. Unavailable.
- Jacques Rancière, The Future of the Image. $16.95. Unavailable.
- Virginia Woolf, The Years. $18.00. Available!
—
Late update: as John Brissenden wisely remarks, “beware the new gatekeepers”. Indeed.
