Where I'm Reading From: The Changing World of Books

Parks, an author (Europa), professor (literature & translation, IULM Univ. in Milan), and regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, poses many questions in this thoughtful collection of 37 blog entries on reading, writing, and translation. He challenges readers to investigate the importance of stories, asking if they are really needed (he doesn't think so) and furthermore, if it is really necessary to finish every book. In "E-books Are for Grown-ups," he likens the transition from print to electronic to the natural movement of a child from picture books to chapter books. The title essay is the most heartfelt; in it, Parks describes his childhood family reading experiences and that sense of togetherness. The author's humor shines in "Stupid Questions" when he examines author book tours, in which the public "fires shots in the dark," groping for a connection between the writer and the book. His expertise as a translator is evident in "In Praise of the Language Police," which investigates the influence of personality on the syntax and standards of language in translated works.