catalog news 008: A Book is a Piece of Wood
Dear reader,
A word from catalog staff member Mark:
A Book is a Piece of Wood
Digital technology is constantly evolving, and we’re forever playing catch up. The technology of the book, on the other hand, hasn’t changed much over the past two millennia.
In 2024, a writer of books, or at least this writer of books, can occasionally feel like an opera singer: practicing an antiquated craft, out-of-step with the times, before a devoted but increasingly distracted audience.
Still there are people who’ll always feel a certain and ineffable magic when holding a book. The form that magic takes will differ with each reader, but it’s undeniable. It’s right there in the name of one of the more influential independent bookstores in the world, Brooklyn’s Books Are Magic.
Some might worry that the number of believers in book magic is small and dwindling, but I think the opposite is true. There are lots of us! And we need that magic more than ever.
Could it be that the special spell that only a book can cast will only grow more powerful as all things digital continue to dominate our lives?
I’m reminded of something David Bowie predicted in the late 1990s, paraphrasing an unnamed friend who worked in “high tech.” Bowie said that in the 21st century, “people, to escape…the agonizing realization that we no longer understand or control our technology, would want to go home and touch something made of wood.”
As a historian/biographer I spend most of my time thinking about the past and about people long dead. And yet, weirdly, I crave change. I love cities and noise and new faces and new voices. And I’m a technological optimist. But while I don’t agonize (much) over new technology, I do find that Bowie was right (as he always is) and that books are my very necessary piece of wood. They ground me. Slow me down. Connect me with other human beings, past, present, and future. When I hold bound pages in my hands I’m happily reminded that what I do, which is to tell stories, is something that people have always done and always will do.
So. How will this old, slow, special, magical piece of technology, the book, learn to play in new ways within the constantly shifting sandlot of the web?
That’s the central question that has brought me to Catalog. I’m looking forward to exploring that question alongside all of you.
On Lists
One of the things I’m most interested in is seeing how Catalog’s list feature will help us to grow our TBR piles in unexpected ways. Most simply, we can use the feature to recreate all sorts of helpful book lists that have already been published elsewhere or that are tied to book awards– say, Vogue’s Best Books of the Year So Far, or a list of Finalists for the 2023 National Book Award - so they’re easily accessible on Catalog. But even more exciting will be coming up with our own list categories – for example, a collection of the books the monster reads in Shelley’s Frankenstein, or a list of the most recent works written by Booker prize winners just prior to winning the Booker. There are no rules! I put up my own mildly embarrassing list of books I just can’t get through no matter how many times I try. (Somebody please convince me to finish Moby Dick…)
I can’t wait to see what kinds of lists the Catalog community comes up with and how these might spark all sorts of conversations and debates.
—Mark Braude
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