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Jay Magidson – Author

~ Books by Jay Magidson

Jay Magidson – Author

Tag Archives: books

Will Printed Books Disappear?

11 Monday May 2015

Posted by Jay Magidson in audio books, books

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

audible.com, audiobooks, books, death of books, Jeff Clarke

Each year more books are published, and each year fewer books are read. We are bombarded by information. Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, Hulu, Television and a thousand other distractions draw our attention away from reading. We wake up in the middle of the night to check email or find out if our Facebook post got any likes. When we do take time to read, it might be for work, or to read long email updates from our children’s school. Sitting on the sofa in the evening curled up with a good book just doesn’t happen as often or for as long.

But people love books, don’t they?

Older people with the habit of reading, probably still do, but what about young people? When I was in school, I would see certain nerdy kids with their faces buried in a book while they slowly walked to school, on the bus, or at the lunch table. OK, I admit it, I was one of them. Sure I see kids with their faces plastered to their phones today, but not reading books, at least not very often, and not if they can help it.

It is not likely we will see books go away entirely anytime soon. But the way future society consumes information, it is unlikely books will stay the same.

How can a book not be a book?

No matter how technologically advanced we get, we are still human, still have a deep need to hear stories. It is so deep in fact, we could call it genetic. Many of us will lament the loss of books. But books are not all that old, barely a few hundred years. Before books, we told each other stories, invented plays, maybe chose some talented person to share those stories on long winter nights.

We’ll always tell stories to each other

Movies, videos, short animations captivate us because they fill that story telling/listening need in each of us. Written stories are different however, asking more of our imagination, which is more difficult to satisfy in other ways.

The Audiobook as storyteller

The audiobook is a relatively recent technological innovation whose concept is actually quite old, far older than books. The recorded voice of a performer retells a story with the energy and enthusiasm of an actor, bringing a tale to life. It is no wonder audiobooks are growing so quickly in popularity. They fit into a busy modern life, listening while driving, riding a train or even while working (if it’s mindless enough). And the lowly book gets a reprieve, while we continue to tickle our hungry imaginations.

But What About Printed Books?

Printed books made from paper, ink and glue may very well disappear one day. Technology already exists to do that. But stories will not, cannot go away, it is part of what makes us human. We may listen to stories through implanted devices in our head, watch holographic movies projected through Virtual Reality glasses, or simply absorb entire stories instantly into our augmented brains, but stories themselves will never go away.

I don’t lament the loss of books. What are they anyway, just a temporary medium, a means to get the story from writer to reader, from creator to audience. A Kindle is not a book, but reading a story on it can and is just as satisfying. An audiobook is not a storyteller sharing a tale by firelight on a winter night, but it too can be just as satisfying. Things change, ways of telling stories change, but the need to share stories never does.


Threshold of the Mind is the futuristic story of mankind whose stories come from Virtual Reality and brain augmentations, where reality is far too stark and unpleasant without them.

In print (yes, ink and paper) from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.
Now in Audiobook on Audible.com read by award winner actor, Jeff Clarke

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From Art to Author

01 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by Jay Magidson in books, fiction, Sartre, writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

books, Bruegel, Falkner, fiction, Hugo, Kafka, Maugham, museums, on Writing, visual, Writing

I grew up with art, was surrounded by it, breathed it.  My father is an art dealer, so our house became an annex for his San Francisco art gallery.  At ten I took a book of Bruegel etchings from his bookshelf and began the laborious task of copying the images.  If you are not familiar with Brueghel, his works are similar to Hieronymus Bosch, lots of strange little characters with animal heads and creepy figures crawling out of eggs.  It is a child’s dream (nightmare) of strange creatures and imagination.  I still love his work.

It was then that I decided to be an artist, to draw great works.  Not painting, drawing, I loved the line and shading.  So I continued copying other artists and kept it up until high school.  By this time in my life I’d probably been to more museums and art galleries than all my classmates combined.  But something inside fizzled.  I didn’t want to be an artist anymore; the fire had burned itself out.

Don’t get me wrong, I still loved art, always will.  It’s like a second blood supply for me.  But the fire to create it had gone out.  During this same period, I had been reading, reading a lot, fiction and science fiction mostly.  There wasn’t really such a thing as young adult fiction at this time.  There were just books that were a little easier for teenagers to read.  I would find a writer that I liked, then consume every book he or she wrote.  Clark, Asimov, Heinlein, H. G. Wells, Bradbury, Maugham, Golding, Salinger, and many more.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but all those words sunk in, shaped my mind and eventually, my desire to create.

OfHumanBondage.jpg

Strangely enough, I studied business in college.  Oh it was tedious and awful as you would expect for an art lover.  To make it bearable, I took lots of literature classes, Shakespeare, poetry – no business students in there.  In my junior year, just as I was ready to drop out, I received a letter inviting me into the foreign exchange program.  I grabbed it like a life-preserver to a drowning student, and spent my final year studying in Copenhagen, Denmark, then traveling around Europe.  Wonderful experience, I recommend it to all students, drowning or not.

What a crazy thing life is, somehow everything comes around to be exactly what it was supposed to be from the beginning.  After college, I followed in my father’s steps, becoming an art dealer and later a gallery owner.  During this time, I wrote lots of things, mostly business related stuff, copy for ads and PR.  Then I tried my hand at essays.  I was invited by the editor of the Aspen Daily News to write a weekly column about art.  I was given plenty of rope with which to hang myself.

I have never studied writing, had only a general idea about journalism.  But why should that stop me.  Unafraid, I just wrote about what I thought would be interesting.  The articles were stupid sometimes, one was about art that had killed people (falling sculptures and poisonous paint), but sometimes it was very deep, a two part article about the Nazi plundering of artwork in Europe.  I got plenty of good feedback, people liked my stories and I kept it up for about two years.  Then the pressures of time and the demands of my art gallery forced me to quit.

But I didn’t stop writing.  Fiction has always been my love.  Sure, I love great science fiction, but my real love is 19th (and early 20th) Century literature, Dickens, Tolstoy, Melville, Falkner, Twain, Hugo, Kafka and dozens of other.  It is difficult sometimes, paragraphs that span pages, descriptions that go into minute detail, but they are always rich with meaning and discovery.  These giants could write.  Great literature is the equivalent of seeing a great painting.  That sigh that is released from your soul when you realize you are witnessing genius.

File:Ebcosette.jpg

So here I am, putting the two things together, art and writing.  Sure, I could write about art, I still do that, but that is not really what I mean.  Art has taught me how to see, how to imagine a scene, the characters, the situation unfolding in my mind.  When I write, I literally see everything happening in the story and just describe it on paper.  Many readers have commented how visual my writing is.  I don’t see how it could be otherwise, that’s where it comes from.

Like I said earlier, life has a way of putting us on the path meant for us.  I guess I should have gotten a degree in literature, studied writing, but it didn’t happen that way.  I learned to write by reading (still do) and how to see by viewing and making art.  Regrets are for the dead.  This is how it is and I’m grateful I get to do what I love.

Even if it took a few extra decades…

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Another Exciting Review for the Book Colors – “…Couldn’t put it down…”

17 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by Jay Magidson in books, colors, ebook, fiction, Gauze, Horror, new release, Reviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Book Review, books, dark fiction, horror, indie books, new literature, new novels, new release

From Facebook:

Shirley McDonald

What a wonderful read! At one point I found myself wanting to scream, “Don’t go back.” I don’t often want to scream at a character in a book. I did while reading Colors. I was pulled into each chapter and found it hard to put the book down. I was sad when I finished the last page. Not because the story was incomplete; But because it was complete and I would have to find a new book to read which I may or may not enjoy as much. I am looking forward to Jay Magidson’s next book which will be released in fall of this year.

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Colors, by Jay Magidson, is Now Available in Print

28 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by Jay Magidson in books, colors, fiction, new release

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

books, colors, horror, jay magidson, literature, new fiction

Colors by Jay Magidson is now in print.

Colors by Jay Magidson - Now Available in PrintFrom the Back Cover:

Nine Colors – Nine Chances
After a bitter fight with his girlfriend, Paul finds himself lost in a strange part of the city, broke, and alone at night in the freezing rain. Suddenly he discovers an open restaurant which wasn’t there a moment before. Paul’s long night is about to get a lot longer, and a lot stranger. To return home, he must journey through nine separate colors, nine separate realities – or be lost forever.

Jay Magidson has woven 9 short stories into a surreal journey of discovery and realization; a place where reality mixes with imagination. If you ever thought life couldn’t get any stranger – think again.

164 Pages – Trade Paperback
$9.95 Available from Amazon
Kindle Version coming soon

Don’t forget to leave feedback on Amazon after you read the book.  It really helps others.  Thanks.

Please take a look at other books by Jay Magidson, past and future releases:

Now Available in print and on Kindle: Shira’s Wish, Photographs by Bobbie Goodrich
Coming this Fall: In the Image of God
Coming in 2013: The Christmas Pieces and Other Stories

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