Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2022 -

This is not a study of the history of the book, though Pressman (English and comparative literature, San Diego State Univ.) is well versed in that field. Rather, she is concerned with what she calls "bookishness": an obsession with the paper codex that has long existed but has, she argues, become markedly more pervasive in the digital age. This obsession often takes the form of kitsch, all lovingly photographed: duvet covers and women's leggings printed with passages from Pride and Prejudice; Twelve South's BookBook, a cover for iPhones and laptops that makes them look like old leather-bound books, complete with raised ribs on the spine and gold-tooled lettering. The most intriguing parts of this engaging book are Pressman's explorations of recent experimental fiction, innovative in typography as well as narrative technique, that highlights codices--works such as Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves (2000), Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts (2007), Jonathan Foer's Tree of Codes (2012), and even William Joyce's children's book The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (2012). Pressman especially explores attitudes to the digital in these works--sometimes antagonistic but more often, she persuasively finds, synergistic. The book is also a delight to read.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.

Reitter and Wellmon consider major scholarly critiques of the role of the humanities from the 19th century in Germany to the present-day US. Well researched and indexed, the book introduces the thought of such prominent idealists as Schiller, Schelling, Fichte, and the founders of the Berlin University and explores the essays of more skeptical controversial figures, e.g., Nietzsche, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Max Weber. The authors begin with a definition of the modern university and what intellectual unity might mean. Using colorful descriptors, they continue with chapters titled "The Lament of the Melancholy Mandarins" and "The Mandarins of the Lab." Finally, they discuss Americans such as Harold Bloom, Babbitt, et al., concluding that in any era, it is not useful to claim crisis status for the humanities, no matter how definitions may shift over time. Dynamic disputes between scientists and humanists provide impetus for explorations of philology, asceticism, the modern humanities, and the place of humanistic disciplines in contemporary university curricula. Explanatory footnotes prove invaluable throughout. The perspectives offered here make this book both stimulating and informative. This is an excellent evolutionary view of a unique, significant subject.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.