Bookishness, by Jessica Pressman (introduction)

Bookishness

Loving Books in a Digital Age

Jessica Pressman

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TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY CULTURE

is obsessed with books. In a time when many have predicted the death of print, books continue to resurface in new and unexpected ways. Jessica Pressman explores the rise of “bookishness” as an identity and an aesthetic strategy that proliferates from store-window décor to experimental writing. Ranging from literature to kitsch objects, stop-motionanimation films to book design, and examining the works of writers such as Jonathan Safran Foer, Jennifer Egan, Mark Z. Danielewski, and Leanne Shapton, Pressman considers the multivalent meanings of books in contemporary culture.

Bringing together media studies, book history, and literary criticism, Bookishness explains how books still give meaning to our lives in a digital age.

“Fizzing with ideas and sparkling with finds, this analysis of the digital age’s love affair with print shows Pressman’s keen eye for the paradoxes of contemporary cultural practices.”

—LEAH PRICE, AUTHOR OF WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT BOOKS: THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF READING “Pressman’s great strength lies in her wonderful touch for the material.

Her expansive command of exemplars runs the gamut from the high literary to cultural kitsch. Bookishness offers that rare and enviable combination of fascinating source material and an easily transportable takeaway—the title term, which is sure to become widely adopted and relied upon.”

—MATTHEW KIRSCHENBAUM, AUTHOR OF TRACK CHANGES: A LITERARY HISTORY OF WORD PROCESSING “Pressman has written an eloquent book on our attempts, at once kitschy and inspired, to maintain a sense of attachment to reading during the book’s twilight.

A profound reminder of the continued hold books have on our imaginations.”

—ANDREW PIPER, AUTHOR OF BOOK WAS THERE: READING IN ELECTRONIC TIMES

JESSICA PRESSMAN is associate professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University, where she cofounded the Digital Humanities Initiative. She is the author of Digital Modernism: Making It New in New Media (2014); coauthor of Reading “Project”: A Collaborative Analysis of William Poundstone’s “Project for Tachistoscope {Bottomless Pit}” (2015); and coeditor of Comparative Textual Media: Transforming the Humanities in the Postprint Era (2013) and Book Presence in a Digital Age (2018).

LITERATURE NOW

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS / NEW YORK cup.columbia.edu Cover design: Noah Arlow Printed in the U.S.A.