Boze the Library Owl

People say, “if you’re not using AI to write, you’ll be left behind!” meanwhile study after study has shown severe and immediate cognitive decline in those who use it regularly. I’m still capable of reading and have a functioning brain, so who’s really being left behind here?

[quoting a tweet by fractalcounty that reads, “today I learned that there are actual people irl who get genuinely upset if they catch you using chatgpt. like they view it as a serious moral failing in certain circles”]

If you're using AI to write essays, eulogies, a text to your wife, I do think less of you as a person. Ceding your mental and creative abilities to a machine is an embarrassing thing and people should be ashamed to admit doing it in public.

so dystopian

not the same thing and you know it.

"a revolution without dancing is not worth having."

[quoting a tweet by fractalcounty that reads, “today I learned that there are actual people irl who get genuinely upset if they catch you using chatgpt. like they view it as a serious moral failing in certain circles”]

If you're using AI to write essays, eulogies, a text to your wife, I do think less of you as a person. Ceding your mental and creative abilities to a machine is an embarrassing thing and people should be ashamed to admit doing it in public.

Frankly I don't like living in an era where no one can read, Big Tech is trying to abolish the educational system as we know it and PBS is gutted because those in power don't see the value in offering children educational programming to counter the ceaseless tide of slop.

The books were chained up so they wouldn't be stolen because they were so valuable. Monks preserved and transmitted classic literature.

it's great

[quoting a tweet from isabelunraveled in which she rails against depressing books that get branded as “great writing”]

A key point in Fahrenheit 451 is that books were banned because they made people depressed and uncomfortable. The novel's protagonist, Montag, is taken into custody after he reads a poem that makes a woman cry because she realizes the emptiness of her life.

I'm sure I've asked you this but have you seen the Jeremy Brett Rebecca? We've spent the past week watching it. It's fantastic.

[quoting a tweet from isabelunraveled in which she rails against depressing books that get branded as “great writing”]

A key point in Fahrenheit 451 is that books were banned because they made people depressed and uncomfortable. The novel's protagonist, Montag, is taken into custody after he reads a poem that makes a woman cry because she realizes the emptiness of her life.

Not enough people understand that a world where no one reads books is just as bad as a world without any books. Those who seek to make you illiterate don't need to burn books. They just need to take away any interest in reading them.

I've just spent three days on holiday at the sea-coast and I'm sorry to say I completely get why Victorian doctors prescribed trips to the sea for the nerves.

tweet saying you can't read Proust because your brain is cooked by screens

No. Ignore this. You are capable of reading books again. The brain is highly malleable and you only need a few screen-free weeks to recover your focus. You will be amazed how quickly the hunger for reading returns. You will be inhaling words

Feeling more and more thankful I grew up before the internet was omnipresent, when we spent most of our time watching old movies on cable or browsing encyclopedias and accidentally acquiring a level of literacy that will cause future generations to think us wizards.

That's totally fine! People are free to enjoy different things but the tone of that other person was quite rude.

everything you said is wrong, but cool!

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

I'm begging everyone who hasn't yet to read this book. The premise, about a man living in an infinite house, is terrifically inventive, and it goes in a direction you don't expect. No other living author writes with such a keen sense of horror & beauty. The book of the decade.

I read that story to Mrs Owl last year on our honeymoon. Someone on twitter said it's their favorite short story of all time!

I debated including Cat's Cradle, my favorite Vonnegut novel

Just a reminder that I don't endorse the personal opinions or private behavior of every author on this list. Happy reading!

bibliollcollege.substack.com/p/bozes-eigh...

I wrote an essay reviewing and ranking my eighty-five FAVORITE books from thirty years of reading - the plays, poems, mysteries, fantasies, diaries that have shaped me. Please tell me in the comments which books I missed. (link below)

“I asked Grok.” “I asked Chat.” I didn’t ask anyone because I grew up without screens and reading encyclopedias was our sole source of entertainment. Now I’m a living compendium of useless knowledge and for the next twenty minutes we are going on an adventure of learning, Brian.

[my tweet from 2019 in which Conan Doyle says, "I have invented the greatest detective of all time" and Agatha Christie says, "Hold my tea," to which Doyle replies, "... why does this tea taste funny." Ladyvyola on tumblr has added, "This is even funnier if you know that Christie did not learn about poisons because she became a mystery writer, rather that she specifically became a writer of mysteries because she already had extensive knowledge of poisons due to her World War I training as a nurse and dispenser."]

People say, “There’s zero benefit to studying dead languages and old books.” The benefit is that you won’t grow up to become the sort of person who spends your one precious life online, yelling at strangers that they must never learn beautiful things.

Very unpopular opinion but I think in a healthier world our schools would teach the so-called “useless things”: Latin, old poetry, classic cinema, how to read and enjoy challenging novels. Studying these things won’t make you a better person. But they will give you a better life.

[vintage book posters, from the 1910s to the 1960s, with slogans like "develop the power that is within you" and "for greater knowledge, use your library often"]

these vintage library promotional posters go so hard

We need a return to analog culture: handwritten letters, seeing films in the cinema, reading books, in-person visits, time in the outdoors. We weren't meant to spend our whole lives online. The joys of tangible living are something no one can take from you.

I kid you not: I was just leaving the library when an old lady, seeing my tower of books, said to my wife, “All these books will keep us out of trouble—and they didn’t cost a penny! Everything is so expensive, I can’t afford groceries… I may as well go to the library!”