I’ll be in Silicon Valley this week for the opening events of the 2014 edition of Silicon Valley Reads, a three-month-long community reading program that takes place throughout Santa Clara County. The theme of this year’s program is “Books and Technology: Friends or Foes?” My book The Shallows is the nonfiction selection for the program, and the fiction pick is Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. The program kicks off on Wednesday evening at the Heritage Theater in Campbell, California. Robin and I will be interviewed by Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy, and the actor Ron Campbell will do a star turn in the role of Buckminster Fuller. The event’s at 7:30 and is free and open to the public.
I’ll also be speaking or reading at the following times and places:
Jan. 23, 4 p.m. at Educational Park Branch Library
Jan. 23, 7 p.m. at Saratoga Library
Jan. 24, 7 p.m. at Los Altos Library
Jan. 25, 2 p.m. at Santa Teresa Branch Library
Jan. 25, 4 p.m. at Berryessa Branch Library
Jan. 26, 2 p.m. at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library
Feb. 27, 4-5:30 p.m. at Santa Clara University
Feb. 27, 7 p.m. at San Jose City College Technology Auditorium
Feb. 28, 2 p.m. at Almaden Branch Library
March 1, 2 p.m. at Willow Glen Branch Library
March 1, 4 p.m. at Evergreen Branch Library
March 2, 1:30 p.m. at India Community Center
March 27, 11 a.m. at Mission College Sorenson Hall
March 27, 3 p.m. at Edenvale Branch Library
March 27, 6:30 p.m. at the Tech Museum
March 29, 11 a.m. at Calabazas Branch Library
March 29, 2 p.m. at Seven Trees Branch Library
March 29, 4 p.m. at Bascom Library & Community Center
March 30, 1:30 p.m. at the Cupertino Community Hall (closing celebration)
You can find the full Silicon Valley Reads schedule here. It’s a wonderful program, with readings, discussions, movies, and an art exhibit, and if you’re in the area I hope you’ll come out and participate. There’s also a companion program for kids that you can read about here.
Have to admit I expected something more sardonic when I clicked the headline. ;)
This comment is actually for “The Reverse Turk”, whose comments seem to be prematurely closed:
The “woman behind the curtain” sounds more like a variant of Siri (say, a feelings-free precursor of Samantha from the film “her”) than some dummy with a smartphone. In particular, AI could do a lot better emulating foreign languages than a stumble-tongue ineptly parroting alien words off a screen. Sad to say, given my skepticism about Behaviorist-based assumptions that AI could ever lead to bonafide self-consciousness.
I attended your talk today at the Santa Teresa Library in San Jose and would highly recommend it to other residents in Silicon Valley. I found the talk informative and insightful. Looking forward to reading your book and adding to this important discussion about the impacts of the internet on our brain/lives.