Silicon Valley Reads, one of the country’s premier community reading programs, has announced that its theme for 2014 will be “Books & Technology: Friends or Foes?,” and I’m thrilled to report that The Shallows is one of the two books that have been selected for the program. The other is Robin Sloan’s novel Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore. Silicon Valley Reads includes dozens of free events at libraries, schools, and other venues throughout Santa Clara County. I’ll be attending as many of those events as possible, including the kick-off program on January 22. If you’re in the area, I hope to have a chance to meet you. I expect the topic will spur some thought-provoking discussions among the Valley’s residents.
SVR will also have a kids’ program related to the general theme, focusing on three books: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce; Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein; and Reading Makes You Feel Good by Todd Parr.
A full schedule of events will be posted soon at the SVR website.
Congrats on the selection of The Shallows as one of two books selected for the Silicon Valley Reads program. As a student, on the other side of the country in a Digital Ethics class, the conversation about technology and our brains, seems to run parallel to Charles Ess’ point that the constantly “on “ state of our online driven lives directly relates to the lack of time spent in the “off “ position, reading a book or reflecting on life. While reflecting on the autonomic self, I’m wondering whether through the integration of technology like Google Glass if we, as humans, will have come full circle in our evolution. Are we headed around the curve back to a hunting and gathering state, when we search for and collect information that eliminates those pesky critical thinking skills, letting the Internet think for us?