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Jonah Lehrer is a contributing editor at Wired. He's also written for The New Yorker, Seed, Nature, the Boston Globe and is a contributor to Radio Lab. He's the author of Proust Was A Neuroscientist. His new book is How We Decide.
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Posted on: August 18, 2008 12:36 PM, by Jonah Lehrer
The paperback version of my first book, Proust Was A Neuroscientist, is now shipping from Amazon. Needless to say, everyone should buy the book in triplicate. I'd apologize for the self-promotion, but isn't blogging just one big orgy of self-promotion?
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Are you kidding? I'm getting one for each room in my house. The book is brilliant.
All best, Virginia Rose (not his mom) Kane
I loaned my copy of Jerome Groopman's How Doctors Think and haven't seen it since. That just came out in softcover too, so you provided a plug for him by proxy. Excellent company to be in.
I won't give up my hardcover Proust (from Powell's, btw) and I know people who will be be intrigued by the book. Lit and music backgrounds, but curious about how the creation process works. Your recent Boston Globe articles on memory and depression were a big hit.
Never apologize for promoting quality talent. As long as it isn't taking time away from writing the next book.
You say:
I'd apologize for the self-promotion, but isn't blogging just one big orgy of self-promotion?
It doesn't have to be. Some people share their writings online simply because they believe in the value of the information and ideas in them, and they genuinely desire to contribute to others' welfare through edification. One might accuse such people of being presumptuous, charitable, or vain - or perhaps all of these at once - but ascribing motive is an undertaking fraught with uncertainty. Self-promotion may indeed be your goal, and it is a legitimate goal indeed, but your (possibly facetious) insinuation that self-promotion is the goal of all bloggers is unwarranted. Depending on your intention, you may or may not want to lower the damage potential of your closing remark by appending a suitable emoticon.
I just red the dutch translation of 'Proust was a neuroscientist'. I'am a neurologist, a Proust-fan and a Woolf-fan so it was a non-stop reading of a brilliant book. One problem: in the Woolf chapter it is said that 'the self is the story we tell our self about our experieces' (my translation from dutch). This formulation implies two selfs. We are the story; 'we are the words' (V.Woolf); 'the story is not really told by you as a self because the core you is born as the story is told, within the story itself' (Damassio). Perhaps it is a translation problem?
Ides Dehaene
Brugge, Belgium
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Comments (5)
Already have it in hardcopy, but good question about self promotion. Not sure on that one. Here's a coincidentally relevant post on the topic from Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/08/policies-biases.html
Posted by: David | August 18, 2008 2:57 PM