The Shallows

A boldly reactionary book... Its thesis is simple and persuasive. The things that we do have a physical effect on our brains... What looks like feast, Carr argues, may be closer to famine... The internet is a distraction machine. -- Sam Leith * Sunday Times * Essential reading about our internet age. * New York Times Book Review * The most readable overview of the science and history of human cognition to date... Carr draws some chilling inferences. * The Economist * An elegantly written cry of anguish... Hair-raising. -- John Harris * Guardian * Carr straddles the book-dominated and web-dominated worlds and is at home in both... Mild-mannered, never polemical, with nothing of the Luddite about him, Carr makes his points with wide-ranging erudition. -- Christopher Caldwell * Financial Times * Unhurried... even-handed... Carr constantly emphasises the fact that screen technologies are neither evil nor miraculous in their effects on the human mind... What is certain, however, is that our minds will change... A worthy illustration that books do indeed enable deep reflection. -- Susan Greenfield * Literary Review * Absorbing [and] disturbing * Wall Street Journal * I have not only given this book to numerous friends, I actually changed my life in response to it. -- Jonathan Safran Foer An important and timely book. See if you can stay off the Web long enough to read it! -- Elizabeth Kolbert This is a book to shake up the world. -- Ann Patchett