Monday Tally is a weekly link round-up of some of my favorite posts discovered over the week. If you have suggestions for Monday Tally, please e-mail sophisticated [dot] dorkiness [at] gmail [dot] com. Enjoy!
“Is Pottermore Good for Harry?” by Lev Grossman in TIME
Book critic and author Lev Grossman had an interesting piece in TIME about what Pottermore, the new “interactive thingy” that J.K. Rowling announced last week, might mean for book readers. I especially enjoyed these two paragraphs:
There are two things that separate reading from other media experiences. One is that reading is better: it’s richer and deeper and more complex and more beautiful. It’s more intellectually rewarding. And I say this as, among other things, a hard-core video gamer. All media have their strengths. I just think reading’s strengths are strongest.
But reading is also harder than other media. Your brain does more work when you’re reading. Movies and music and games and interactive thingies all supply your brain with a huge amount of information. Literally: there’s a reason why video and audio files are so much bigger than text files. They’re handing you a huge amount of data, which you can then sit back and enjoy.
(Thanks to The Book Lady for this one).
“Duty Calls” from xkcd
During various kerfuffles on the Internet this week, I found myself constantly returning to this particular xkcd comic, which is one of my favorites. It’s a gentle reminder about the futility of arguing with strangers online, especially those trolls who take perverse pleasure in ruffling feathers.
“All Work and No Pay: The Great Speedup” by Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery in Mother Jones
While I’m not sure if I entirely agree with the conclusions in the second part of this article about changes in American working habits, I enjoyed the discussion about the implications of expecting Americans to continually do more with less. I’d summarize the argument, but I think it’s just better if you go read the story yourself.
For more of my favorite links from the week, check out my Tumblr, A Little Bit of Dorkiness.
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Thanks as always for the great links 🙂
Glad you liked them!
Eeeeee Pottermore! I don’t exactly know what it is either but I am excited to learn about McGonagall and her backstory. Woooooo!
There are a lot of characters, especially the professors, that I’d like to learn more about. I’m excited to explore that a bit.
The xkcd comic describes my husband totally!
It describes a lot of people 🙂 I try not to get involved with arguments on The Internet, but I’m like a moth to a flame — I just can’t avoid reading the comments and getting annoyed by them.
Love the xkcd comic. It is so true! Also, I think Americans should get more paid vacation – I think we’d be healthier and happier if we could see more places, spend more time with family and friends, and just rejuvenate. I’m glad I have a job that I can leave at the workplace and not bring home. I hope that never changes.
I agree — I think more vacation would make people more productive and less resentful of work. I like that I can leave work at work as well.
Thank you for the link to the Mother Jones article. It was so interesting to have an article prove but I inherently already knew but it sure feels good to have my thinking and my experience validated!
That’s what I liked about it too — it’s nice to find books or articles that recognize personal experiences.