Description
Please note event tickets are neither exchangeable nor refundable.
Tuesday 15th September, 7:30pm
Backstory, 71 Balham High Rd, SW12 9AP
Times columnist James Marriott believes we are entering a post-literate society - at Backstory, we really hope not. James will be talking to Tom about his book, The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society
About the book:
Reading built the modern world. It helped create democracy, science and reason. Now, books are dying, and people everywhere are losing the ability to read deeply or think rationally.
The golden chain of knowledge linking reader to reader through history is breaking. The screen has replaced the page. Our free time has been colonised by addictive, infantilising slop.
A culture of distraction is replacing a culture of reasoned debate. As reading declines, thought becomes shallower and culture becomes simpler. Public life is becoming more emotional, more tribal, more irrational.
We are entering a post-literate society. And the world we knew is already beginning to disappear. Six hundred years after the invention of the printed book, it has never been more threatened or more irreplaceable.
Tickets Available:
Ticket only - £15 (This ticket does not include a copy of the book. You can decide to buy a copy on the night, but this will be charged in addition, at the full price of the book.)
Ticket & book (RRP £14.99)- £23 (To collect on the night.)