Books

Stealing MySpace: Stuck in a moment

book reviews, Books, Random House, Writing

Ah, the perils of keeping up with the zeitgeist. No doubt when Julia Angwin began writing “Stealing MySpace” she was confident that MySpace was indeed “the most popular Website in America,” as the subhead claims.

Alas, that no longer seems to be the case. In recent months, Facebook traffic has surged to at least near parity Stateside, with Twitter coming on strong among the media and political classes. MySpace now seems so old hat that a reference in “He’s Just Not That Into You” sounded hopelessly dated (and therefore uncool) rather than hip and knowing.

Frankly, I questioned the point of Angwin’s book at this juncture. When I finally picked up the galleys, I was surprised by how doggedly the Wall Street Journal scribe clung to her premise. Yes, Facebook is growing, Angwin wrote more than once, before dismissing it as small potatoes compared to the all mighty and popular MySpace.

Except that’s not the case anymore. Last year Facebook passed MySpace worldwide and some of the most recent metrics suggest it has done the same in America. Its growing legion of middle-aged converts recently gained the attention of Time.

What I don’t get is why Angwin didn’t couch her claims a little better — especially as it became clear that Facebook was making such rapid gains last year. But I guess that would dilute the significance of her undertaking.

It’s too bad she didn’t do more to address those issues, for there is much of interest in the book. There are eye-opening stories about founders’ seedy dealings in spam and spyware, and plenty of juicy corporate intrigue following the News Corp. purchase.

Books about fast-moving developments are tricky, as I’ve noted before. But in order for these books to be as relevant as possible, writers and their editors have to be able and willing to adjust on the fly, just as a series of authors did when the economy plummeted last fall.

Here’s hoping that HarperCollins has greater success reacting to Internet time, if that phrase itself isn’t too hopelessly passe, with its new It Books imprint than Random House did with Angwin’s tome and “Stuff White People Like,” a lackluster spinoff from a popular blog. First up, per the NYT: “Twitter Wit,” a collection of posts, all no longer than 140 characters long.

Question is: Will we have had our fill of Tweets by then? By the time various movies about Facebook hit the bigscreen we will no doubt have moved on to something else. 

Lost in lit

book reviews, Books, Writing

Reading was my first big passion. Around second or third grade I began devouring books at my local library. I couldn’t wait for my mother to bring me there so I could check out more books. I spent so many hours with my nose buried in books my parents urged me to go outside and play. But I never stayed away from books long; I loved losing myself in literary worlds. 
After college I vowed never to stop reading for pleasure. But after a brief stint at a publishing house in New York, I drifted away. Instead of curling up with a good book, I found myself reading magazines or watching movies instead. 
Attempts to jump start my reading would bog down when I came across a well-regarded book that failed to engage. Was this really what it meant to be a grownup? I couldn’t help but recall my father mostly reading trade journals at the height of his career.  
Michelle Slatalla argued this case a few days ago in the New York Times, writing nostalgically about her own faded passion for book reading, made all the more bittersweet by watching her daughters lose themselves in novels. 
Books once affected her so deeply then that she can still remember the physical act of reading them. These days, however, books sit forlornly on her night table half-read, waiting for her to get the urge to dip into them again. 
Slatalla posits that readers lose their ability to be transported by books as they become more discerning. “It’s an inevitable byproduct of growing up that I formed too many opinions of my own to be able to give in wholeheartedly to to the prospect of living inside someone else’s universe.”
That’s not it. Critical thinking does not preclude surrender to art in any form, as Pauline Kael memorably telegraphed in “I Lost It at the Movies.” Grownup time constraints make that surrender more challenging, but by no means impossible. 
I rediscovered my passion for books a few years ago, when my boss anointed me book review editor. It’s just one of the duties I juggle these days at Variety, but oh what a treat.       
    
My father also came back to book reading in his retirement, insisting that I give Harry Potter a try. And my mother, who didn’t begin working until her kids were teenagers, never really lost her joy of reading. She always managed to sneak book reading in between her chores. 
Perhaps Slatalla needs to treat herself to a good old-fashioned book binge. You’re never too old to lose it in the book aisle.