William Powers: Hamlet's Blackberry

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:29:33 -0400

Start: Mon, 08/09/2010 - 7:00pm

End: Mon, 08/09/2010 - 7:00pm

Monday, August 9th at 7 pm
WILLIAM POWERS
author of
Hamlet's Blackberry:
A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age

A crisp, passionately argued answer to the question that everyone who’s grown dependent on digital devices is asking: “Where’s the rest of my life?”

At a time when we’re all trying to make sense of our relentlessly connected lives, this revelatory book presents a bold new approach to the digital age. Our computers and mobile devices do wonderful things for us. But they also impose an enormous burden, making it harder for us to focus, do our best work, build strong relationships, and find the depth and fulfillment we crave.

Using his own life as laboratory and object lesson, and drawing on such great thinkers as Plato, Shakespeare and Thoreau, Powers shows that digital connectedness serves us best when it’s balanced by its opposite, disconnectedness.

"To those dithering over whether to close down Facebook accounts, resign from the Twitterati, and resume a more contemplative and more properly connected life, this remarkable book presents the answers and the validations for which you have been hoping. William Powers, brave in intent and wise in argument, offers in these pages an oasis of serenity and sanity, a sanctuary from a world fast turning into a limitless digital Sahara.”
- Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman & The Man Who Loved China

“A brilliant and thoughtful handbook for the Internet age – why we have this screen addiction, its many perils, and some surprising remedies that can make your life better.”
- Bob Woodward

Maximilian Werner: Black River Dreams

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 10:52:26 -0400

Start: Thu, 08/12/2010 - 7:00pm

End: Thu, 08/12/2010 - 7:00pm

Thursday, August 12th at 7 pm
MAXIMILIAN WERNER
author of
Black River Dreams

Author Maximilian Werner will be at the store to share his new book, Black River Dreams.

Black River Dreams is a celebration of the fly fishing life. It is also a record of human awakening. Alternately lyrical and meditative, mystical and sensuous, each of these sixteen essays represents an exploration of the intersection between past and present, spirit and body, water and land, trout and people, ghosts and dreams. Whether Mr. Werner is describing his first and last time fly fishing as a boy on a stream in northern Maine; or the experience of sitting on the river bank with a dear old friend who, moments earlier, told him he had cancer; or the many golden evenings he and his wife cast big dry flies to Apache trout cruising in the dim mountain light, he brings an ecologically informed, poetic sensibility to all of his fly fishing encounters.

"A non-fisherman, I cast my mind into Black River Dreams expecting to find myself quickly out of my depth. Instead, I was carried along by the current of Maximilian Werner's narratives of fly fishing obsession, buoyed by poetry and stabilized by philosophy. With this impressive first book, Werner joins the tradition of Maclean, Leeson, Duncan, and Barilla, among many others, showing that fly fishing and writing make a fine 'double major.' "
- Scott Slovic, author of Going Away to Think

Maximilian Werner was born in Idaho and reared in Maine and Utah. He now lives in Salt Lake City with his wife and two children. His essays have appeared in several journals and magazines, including The North American Review, Yale Anglers' Journal, ISLE, Weber Studies, Fly Rod and Reel, and Sporting Classics. Mr. Werner's essay "Anglers' Ball" was first runner-up for the 2008 Robert Traver Fly Fishing Writing Award, and his column, My Utah Stories, appears bimonthly on Fly Rod and Reel Online. Black River Dreams won the 2008 Utah Arts Council's Original Writing Award for Nonfiction: Book. Mr. Werner teaches writing at the University of Utah.

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William Powers: Hamlet's Blackberry

Maximilian Werner: Black River Dreams