Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Steve talks about his new book, Everything Bad Is Good for You. (Love the title). A snippet:

It's just me trying to marshal all the evidence I can to persuade the reader of a single long-term trend: popular culture on average has been steadily growing more complex and cognitively challenging over the past thirty years. The dumbing-down, instant gratification society assumption has it completely wrong. Popular entertainment is making us smarter and more engaged, not catering to our base instincts.

Steve is one of my very favorite writers. He leads you through some complex topic and just as you're pleased with yourself for having understood so much, he turns you around and shows you some truth you hadn't noticed about where you've just been. Despite the powerful Writers Envy his work induces in me, I'm very much looking forward to his new book, which he thinks he'll be done revising in a few months.