WorldChanging: A User's Guide to the 21st Century
Fortuitously, I happened to be in Seattle on October 31st for the launch of the WorldChanging book, aptly named A User's Guide to the 21st Century. This book is already becoming big news, so I'd like to put some early information and opinions here.
First of all, the website and blog WorldChanging.com are phenomenal - the issues are timely and signficant, the writing is excellent, the images bring the issues closer, and new posts come several times per day. Some of the WorldChanging blog entries appear to be the best source I can find on particular issues - for example they ran a great piece on the forthcoming Blood Diamonds movie. If you are one of the "practically-everyone" that takes procrastination breaks at work, it's a great site for that.
Secondly, a comment on the Seattle event: it was a little disappointing. The "tour" information on the website was sparse, so I didn't know what to expect - but it turned out to be a discussion between WorldChanging co-founder Alex Steffen and cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling. The latter seemed to be trying to live up to some sort of radical in-your-face image, but ended up rambling and coming up with preposterously simplistic aspirations. The crowd found his jokes funny sometimes, but I tend to resent people who waste activist energy trying to be edgy rather than practical. I don't know if this negative review will hurt my chances of joining the soon-to-be-established team of WorldChanging local bloggers, but so be it. This blog is my chance to express my candid and unaligned views about things that matter.
And finally, the book itself. WorldChanging: A User's Guide to the 21st Century is fantastic in a way, but also has its weaknesses. For the sheer amount informations about our world's social and economic problems (and real or potential solutions), it appears to be unrivaled - and therefore worth a spot on your bookshelf or even your coffee table. However, the weaknesses are that it's too much like an encyclopedia - without the benefit of an organizational structure that makes it useful for looking things up. So you don't quite read it from cover-to-cover, and you don't quite ask questions of it. What do you do with it? I think you just pick it up and open to a random page, potentially withing a broad topic that you find interesting - but it seems that so much more could be done with this information to make it accessible to readers. Given the unweildy format, I think the book may end up having only a niche audience of readers who already care enough to wade through 609 pages of pasted-together blogs. Regardless, pre-publication it was already in Amazon's Top 100, and a leading researcher I know received at least 5 emails about it just this past week.
Even if the book doesn't quite live up to my (very high) expectations, it's encouraging to see the phenomenal amount of interest it has generated - showing that there is an audience for this sort of book. And that says good things about the audience.
First of all, the website and blog WorldChanging.com are phenomenal - the issues are timely and signficant, the writing is excellent, the images bring the issues closer, and new posts come several times per day. Some of the WorldChanging blog entries appear to be the best source I can find on particular issues - for example they ran a great piece on the forthcoming Blood Diamonds movie. If you are one of the "practically-everyone" that takes procrastination breaks at work, it's a great site for that.
Secondly, a comment on the Seattle event: it was a little disappointing. The "tour" information on the website was sparse, so I didn't know what to expect - but it turned out to be a discussion between WorldChanging co-founder Alex Steffen and cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling. The latter seemed to be trying to live up to some sort of radical in-your-face image, but ended up rambling and coming up with preposterously simplistic aspirations. The crowd found his jokes funny sometimes, but I tend to resent people who waste activist energy trying to be edgy rather than practical. I don't know if this negative review will hurt my chances of joining the soon-to-be-established team of WorldChanging local bloggers, but so be it. This blog is my chance to express my candid and unaligned views about things that matter.
And finally, the book itself. WorldChanging: A User's Guide to the 21st Century is fantastic in a way, but also has its weaknesses. For the sheer amount informations about our world's social and economic problems (and real or potential solutions), it appears to be unrivaled - and therefore worth a spot on your bookshelf or even your coffee table. However, the weaknesses are that it's too much like an encyclopedia - without the benefit of an organizational structure that makes it useful for looking things up. So you don't quite read it from cover-to-cover, and you don't quite ask questions of it. What do you do with it? I think you just pick it up and open to a random page, potentially withing a broad topic that you find interesting - but it seems that so much more could be done with this information to make it accessible to readers. Given the unweildy format, I think the book may end up having only a niche audience of readers who already care enough to wade through 609 pages of pasted-together blogs. Regardless, pre-publication it was already in Amazon's Top 100, and a leading researcher I know received at least 5 emails about it just this past week.
Even if the book doesn't quite live up to my (very high) expectations, it's encouraging to see the phenomenal amount of interest it has generated - showing that there is an audience for this sort of book. And that says good things about the audience.
posted by Melissa Paschall at 11/04/2006 02:39:00 PM
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