100 Things We've Lost to the Internet

May 1, 2021

From world-famous neuroscientist Damasio (it all started with Descartes' Error), Feeling and Knowing relies on recent discoveries in neurobiology, psychology, and AI to explain what consciousness really is (originally scheduled for March 2021). Foster and Frylinck, creators of the documentary phenom My Octopus Teacher--one of Netflix's top 10 films of 2020--swam through South Africa's jaw-droppingly beautiful kelp forests without benefit of wetsuits or oxygen masks (but aided by their favorite octopus) to bring us Underwater Wild, illustrated with over 200 full-color photographs (100,000-copy first printing). A multi-award-winning blogger and founder of Planet Paws, Facebook's most popular pet health page, Habib joins forces with world-renowned veterinarian Becker to explain that dogs suffer from the same chronic illnesses as humans, then introduces a wealth of science-based information ensuring that The Forever Dog in your household will stay alive and well for a long time (150,000-copy first printing). In The Wires of War, Helberg, the former news policy lead at Google, limns the growing cyber conflict piting the West against primarily Russia and China over both software (e.g., news information and social media platforms) and hardware (e.g., cell phones and satellites (100,000-copy first printing). Having grown up in Bangladesh, which she describes as having minimal women's health care, Hossain expected expert maternal care in wealthy America--and nearly died in childbirth; All in Your Head is her impassioned critique of sexism in U.S. health care. Offerman humorously explores the great outdoors as he takes us where The Deer and the Antelope Play. New Yorker staffer Orlean, perhaps best known for The Orchid Thief, here writes On Animals, which explores the animal-human relationship in stories she has written throughout her career. Editor of the New York Times Book Review, Paul offers 100 never-before-published essays (with witty illustrations by Nishant Choksi) to explore 100 Things We've Lost to the Internet, from punctuation and good manners to the ability to entertain ourselves. In The Plant Hunter, enthnobotanist Quave relates her search for plants that can improve or save our lives. Having practiced medicine worldwide, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, Reisman takes us inside The Unseen Body to describe its functions by relating them to the world--the Arctic taught him the value of fat, for instance, while the Himalayas revealed the border between brain and mind (75,000-copy first printing). A prolific author of science titles, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Rhodes profiles Harvard biologist and naturalist O. Wilson--noteworthy for promoting sociobiology and biodiversity--in Scientist. In Being You, the codirector of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science at the Universitiy of Sussex, explains that we do not view the world objectively but through a series of constant predictions that are rooted in biological mechanisms we can now measure.

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August 2, 2021
The dislocations of the internet era get the listicle treatment in this charming if superficial survey. New York Times Book Review editor Paul (Rectangle Time) inventories “the things we achingly miss, the things we hardly knew existed, the things to which we can give a hard adios,” including such behaviors as ignoring people (“It was useful to pretend to have no idea someone was trying to reach you”) and “being in the moment” during a concert or other large gathering, rather than gazing at one’s phone; qualities including patience and civility; and physical items like kitchen phones and checkbooks. “Every time the Internet swings the door wide open,” Paul contends, “the consequences are at once liberating and dire.” Previously, everyday life was “unimpeded by what was going on in other people’s heads”; now, however, “the input never stops.” While Paul occasionally brings in statistics and expert analysis, her rants are generally an accomplished solo act, enriched by her self-deprecating sense of humor (she describes her book as “grumpy old-man thoughts and wary skepticism, lashed through with a contrary streak of optimism”). Readers who remember the dawning of the internet era will find plenty to commiserate with in this mostly lighthearted lament. Illus.

September 15, 2021
The editor of the New York Times Book Review offers dismayed lamentations on all that is being lost to the internet. In her latest, Paul analyzes the implications of the internet age, deploying "my grumpy-old-man thoughts and wary skepticism, lashed through with a contrary streak of optimism, accumulated over years of observing the cul-ture and covering its manifestations and effects." She acknowledges the putative treasures and tools of the internet, but she reminds readers that for every gain, there is a loss--e.g., privacy, civility, or myriad products, services, and practices we may have thought to be timeless. To many, writes the author, we can say good riddance or a fond farewell, though she aches for the loss of others. From handwritten letters to quiet, unoccupied moments, cursive writing to vacations without work (or email), school librarians to newspapers, LPs to mixtapes to the notion of "closure"--so much we thought eternal is quaintly antiquarian or gone forever. As Paul engagingly shows, their replacements aren't always an advance. Yet one thing Paul neglects to address, save by implication, is the power of "no." We are not forced in every case to accede to fashion, to all of modern technology's demands, or to the dictates of contemporary sensibilities. Paul is incisive when she gets serious, as in her regrets on the decline of reading (especially of books), diminishing opportunities for solitude, and our eroding capacity for empathy. But some of her death knells are premature, a stretch, too sweeping, or off-base, while others come off as overly tongue-in-cheek. It's understandable that Paul writes as if Gen X reality (and that of their children) is a dominant force. Still, there are plenty of people pushing back against the tide in meaningful ways. The author should know there are also 100 ways to resist digital dominance as well. A mixed-bag cultural assessment of the internet landscape.

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