Book Report

I did a book report on a book I recently finished called Glut. The book is fairly consise and entertaining history of Information Science. I'm not sure I wrote the book report with the intent of another person actually reading it, ike most of what I write outside of work. I have been trying to make more of an effort to study books more, as opposed to just reading them. I feel like I haven't been retaining information from books like I used to. I think that's because I wasn't using the information.

When I read this book I took some notes in the margins and underlined passages. Then I transfered my notes to paper and added to them. Then I wrote the book report. At first I thought I was going to write it as a formal academic looking sort of thing but midway through I decided that was just going to make it long and boring so I went a more casual and superficial route. Ironically one of the things I was thinking about while reading the book was the vanishing art of formal writing.

Currently I am slowly reading a book that was referenced in Glut, Orality and Literacy by Walter J. Ong. It is definitely a more academic volume. Although it is very short, it might take me a little while to get through. It seems the sort of book that is written more for people to site in their own books and papers. You can tell right away because it is so dense with references in keeping with the demands of academic writing. That is necessary for the work that forms the basis of our knowledge, but it can make for dull reading