“...what the commercial coup of Fifty Shades [Of Grey] reveals about us is this: we‘re an infirm, ineffectual tribe still stuck in some sort of larval stage. Do I really expect Americans to sit down with Adam Bede...after all the professional and domestic hurly-burly of their day? ... Pardon me, but yes, I do.”
“A physical book makes it possible to fend off the nausea roused by the electronic despotism we‘ve let into our lives [...]. Your Kindle Fire is so named because it intends to incinerate your concentration, because Amazon understands that we Americans rather enjoy the hot oppression of endless options, the arson of our calm.”
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YUP.
“[F]or some of us, a physical book will always be superior reading, because it allows us to be alone with ourselves, to sit in solidarity with ourselves, in silence, in solitude, in the necessary sensitivity that fosters development and imagination.”
(From Giraldi‘s essay on book collecting)
“Literature is read and criticism written in defiance of the ongoing noise, the ceaseless cyber grating and reckless surrender of calm, and in defense of [...] the great wilderness that gives up its secrets only by way of an inquisitive hush, a whispered inwardness in which we can be wholly ourselves.”
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This is my first encounter with Giraldi‘s work, and oh my GOD. #nowreading #criticism #essays
American Audacity: In Defense of Literary Daring | 
