On email and books

[S Johnson]

On Tue, 29 Apr 1997, Jules Siegel wrote:
> [4] It is one of the first (maybe only) books about the Internet culture
> that attempts to provide a kind of slice of Internet life, rather than
> extended technical and philosophical discussions about cyberspace. It is
> cyberspace set in type.
> 
The above is, I think, a worthy subject for a book. And there are many 
people, I am sure, who have published or are working on books along just
these lines who would agree with you. Its a fascinating, important, and
fun time to be playing around cummunicating with all you folk out there. 
A book I'd recommend to anyone interested in the human side of Internet
life is Howard Rheingold's "Virtual Cummunity" (published '93 or '94)
which documents love, life, death, and flame-wars using email excerpts 
taken from discussion lists, as well as BBSs, and IRChat lines, and people
grappling with all the issues which Jules' book has raised this week
for Pynchon-list. I look forward to reading "Lineland" if it does
indeed walk this territory but I have no appetite for an expose of the
very ordinary life of Mr Pynchon.


stuart johnson

------------------------------------
Dr. S. T. Johnson	stj at holyrood.ed.ac.uk
			http://www.ed.ac.uk/~stj/homepage.html