Baby Boomers and Books

The most exciting feature in this week's New York Times Book Review was not a book, but the back page ad for the NEW Jitterbug cell phone ("It doesn't play music, take pictures, or surf the internet"). You see, I didn't get a cell phone until a couple of years ago, and even then, I felt it was too soon. I used to tell people that I wouldn't get one until I needed it for work because what's the point? People always responded that they couldn't survive without their cell phones. They've seemingly replaced wristwatches for telling the time, address books for keeping contact lists, disposable cameras for snapshots, music players for tuning fellow travellers out, and texting has replaced e-mail/instant messaging for most purposes except Skype. I ask again - what's the point? Call me a Luddite but I'm down with the old people who've survived 70+ years without cell phones and see bells and whistles as burdens. The best part on the Jitterbug ad was the slogan on the bottom, "for Boomers and Beyond," and the line at the top: "Bigger, brighter screen. Large, backlit numbers." I guess I'm not alone in being unable to distinguish all the little icons on my cell phone screen. Am I the last of my generation not to want GPS over using a road atlas or an iPhone to watch movie trailers over seeing them at the theater?

Fiction

That Old Cape Magic - Richard Russo; "From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls (which I've read) and Bridge of Sighs, the story of a marriage, and of all the other ties that bind, from parents and in-laws to children and the promises of youth."

The Signal - Ron Carlson; "A Wyoming couple make a final wilderness excursion . . . which is both an elegy to a broken marriage and a heart-stopping thriller."

Nonfiction

Back To the Garden: The Story of Woodstock - Pete Fornatale; "Focuses a little more on the music, with back stories about many of the bands and analysis of who stopped the show (Sly Stone, Joe Cocker) and who underachieved (Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead)."

The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life - Alison Gopnik; "Surprising claim about the importance of children to philosophy is not that they ask the same questions as grown-up professors . . . but that thinking about children can somehow provide the answers the professors are looking for."