The Iron Whim

Download or read book The Iron Whim written by Darren Sean Wershler-Henry and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Iron Whim is an intelligent, irreverent, and humorous history of writing culture and technology. It covers the early history and evolution of the typewriter as well as the various attempts over the years to change the keyboard configuration, but it is primarily about the role played by this marvel in the writer's life. Darren Wershler-Henry populates his book with figures as disparate as Bram Stoker, Mark Twain, Franz Kafka, Norman Mailer, Alger Hiss, William Burroughs, J. G. Ballard, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, Northrop Frye, David Cronenberg, and David Letterman; the soundtrack ranges from the industrial clatter of a newsroom full of Underwoods to the more muted tapping and hum of the Selectric. Wershler-Henry casts a bemused eye on the odd history of early writing machines, important and unusual typewritten texts, the creation of On the Road, and the exploits of a typewriting cockroach named Archy, numerous monkeys, poets, and even a couple of vampires. He gathers into his narrative typewriter-related rumors and anecdotes (Henry James became so accustomed to dictating his novels to a typist that he required the sound of a randomly operated typewriter even to begin to compose). And by broadening his focus to look at typewriting as a social system as well as the typewriter as a technological form, he examines the fascinating way that the tool has actually shaped the creative process.With engaging subject matter that ranges over two hundred years of literature and culture in English, The Iron Whim builds on recent interest in books about familiar objects and taps into our nostalgia for a method of communication and composition that has all but vanished.

Download or read book Paul Auster's Writing Machine written by Evija Trofimova and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-08-28 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Auster is one of the most acclaimed figures in American literature. Known primarily as a novelist, Auster's films and various collaborations are now gaining more recognition. Evija Trofimova offers a radically different approach to the author's wider body of work, unpacking the fascinating web of relationships between his texts and presenting Auster's canon as a rhizomatic facto-fictional network produced by a set of writing tools. Exploring Auster's literal and figurative use of these tools ? the typewriter, the cigarette, the doppelg�nger figure, the city ? Evija Trofimova discovers Auster's "writing machine", a device that works both as a means to write and as a construct that manifests the emblematic writer-figure. This is a book about assembling texts and textual networks, the writing machines that produce them, and the ways such machines invest them with meaning. Embarking on a scholarly quest that takes her from between the lines of Auster's work to between the streets of his beloved New York and finally to the man himself, Paul Auster's Writing Machine becomes not just a critical investigation but a critical collaboration, raising important questions about the ultimate meaning of Auster's work, and about the relationship between texts, their authors, their readers and their critics.

Download or read book Apostrophe written by Bill Kennedy and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2006-04-05 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: you are entirely happy with your poem / you are not happy then there is no charge and your deposit is returned / you are totally satisfied with the outcome / you are a man / you are a little confused / you are entirely happy with your poem / you are not happy then there is no charge and your deposit is returned / you are totally satisfied with the outcome . . . Apostrophe is: a) a figure of speech in which a person, an abstract quality or a nonexistent entity is addressed as though present b) a poem written in 1993 in which every sentence is an apostrophe c) a

Download or read book Evaluation of selected spinels and perovskites as candidate high-temperature molybdenum coatings written by Max L. Glenn and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Report of Investigations written by and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Catalog written by Risdon Iron Works and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Approaches to the History of Written Culture written by Martyn Lyons and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-07 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the history of writing as a cultural practice in a variety of contexts and periods. It analyses the rituals and practices determining intimate or ‘ordinary’ writing as well as bureaucratic and religious writing. From the inscribed images of ‘pre-literate’ societies, to the democratization of writing in the modern era, access to writing technology and its public and private uses are examined. In ten studies, presented by leading historians of scribal culture from seven countries, the book investigates the uses of writing in non-alphabetical as well as alphabetical script, in societies ranging from Native America and ancient Korea to modern Europe. The authors emphasise the material characteristics of writing, and in so doing they pose questions about the definition of writing itself. Drawing on expertise in various disciplines, they give an up-to-date account of the current state of knowledge in a field at the forefront of ‘Book History’.