I got my fill of relatively ancient San Francisco travel guides fairly quickly and moved on to Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You. I requested the book from the library after seeing the author on The Daily Show keeping a straight face while Jon Stewart defended that venerable TV staple The Dukes of Hazzard. (Go ahead, click the link. And you thought you had a pop-up blocker.)
Mr. Johnson (the author; I will make no more references in this entry to Bo Duke) merges his knowledge of neuroscience and pop culture to propose an unusual theory: the advance of video games, television, film, and the Internet over the last 30 years is actually sharpening our brains rather than dulling them. He points out that these means of escapist entertainment are much more complicated and demanding of our mental faculties than they used to be, and as a result, we have grown accustomed to thinking along numerous threads and solving problems involving multiple variables.
To his credit, he seems to be a well-read man of many interests. But I couldn't help but be a little geeked out by his anecdotes at times, and wonder if I would have enjoyed the book more had he not spent the first 60 pages alienating me with his praise of present day video games (which I will always consider a waste of time).
Whether you agree with Mr. Johnson or not -- read his blog to learn more about him -- you have to appreciate the fact that he's getting exposure as a guest on The Daily Show. Jon Stewart's nightly fake news program always has its share of bestselling nonfiction authors, but it took this article by one of the authors of Bookslut to make me notice how The Daily Show may be changing the way some Americans read.
For the trip: The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell.
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I cannot believe that (1) law school students had the time to play that much XBox, and (2) that any brain skills they picked up assisted them in any way to pass the bar.
Well, you can skip the first 60 pages and start with television. Mr. Johnson maps out the narrative threads per minute of Dragnet, Hill Street Blues, and The Sopranos to show how drama has become much more complicated to follow, but the audience interest is pretty much the same. He doesn't get as scientific with film and the Internet, which is one of the book's weaknesses. It's mostly theory.
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