Words Onscreen

"A darkling view of what our world--and what we--will be like if codex reading eventually surrenders to the flickering screens of e-readers." --Kirkus Reviews "A must-read for all Americans concerned with having future generations skilled in critical thinking." -Nat Hentoff, The Daily Herald "From kindergartens to universities, schools are being pressured to replace printed books with electronic ones. But is reading from a screen the same as reading from a page? Naomi Baron provides the most thoroughgoing answer yet to that crucial question. Words "Onscreen is an essential book for educators, parents, and everyone who loves to read." --Nicholas Carr, author of The Glass Cage and The Shallows "Naomi Baron has written a tour de force on the changes to reading in a digital milieu. It includes and then goes beyond the work before it, including my own. It deserves our "deepest reading" and re-reading in either, or perhaps, both mediums!" --Maryanne Wolf, Tufts University, author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain "Anyone who loves reading about reading will love reading Words Onscreen. Baron goes back in history to place current trends in context, gives a tremendously clear-eyed view of the present, and points towards a future for those who prefer printed books that is both perilous and hopeful. What's particularly amazing is that a book so impeccably and thoroughly researched should also be so fun to read." -Will Schwalbe, author of the New York Times bestseller The End of Your Life Book Club "The book is an engaging history of reading as well as a provocative argument about its future." --Wall Street Journal "Ultimately, Words Onscreen invites us to rethink our own reading habits. By taking careful stock of what we gain in terms of convenience and access versus what we lose in terms of concentration and distraction, Words Onscreen offers an overview of reading (both digital and in print) that is both broad and deep. Undergraduates in courses that deal with a range of aspects involving rhetoric and technology would benefit from it. Graduate students and other scholars will find that it provides a solid foundation upon which to build more theoretically rich and critical work on digital reading."