Picnic Comma Lightning

Laurence Scott

182 ratings by Goodreads

Language: English

Published by WW Norton and Co, US, 2019

0393609979 / 9780393609974

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Seller: Rarewaves USA, HEBRON, KY, U.S.A.Rarewaves USA

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In Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Humbert Humbert offers a memorably brief account of his parents' death: "picnic, lightning." Picnic Comma Lightning, too, opens with death-that of Laurence Scott's mother-because, for a philosopher, death raises a profound existential question: How do we know what is real, especially when we have come to question the reality of so many of our day-to-day experiences? Writing from the intersection of philosophy, politics, and memoir, Scott transforms his personal meditation on loss into a beguiling exploration of what it means to exist in the world today.It used to be that our lives were rooted in reasonably solid things: to people, places and memories. Now, in an age of online personas, alternative truths, constant surveillance and an increasingly hysterical news cycle, our realities are becoming flimsier and more vulnerable than ever before. Scott's far-ranging examination charts the ways our traditional mental models of the world have started to fray. He ponders how ubiquitous cameras reframe our private lives (an event only exists once someone posts the video), how mysterious algorithms undermine our attempts at self-definition through their own data-driven portraits, and what happens in those moments when our illusions about reality are ruptured by incontrovertible facts (like the death of a parent or a bolt of lightning). "A report from the front line of the online generation" (Sunday Times), Picnic Comma Lightning is an essential account of how we've started to make sense of our strange new world.…

Seller Inventory # LU-9780393609974

Title
Picnic Comma Lightning
Author
Laurence Scott
Publisher
WW Norton and Co, US
Publication year
2019
Condition
New
Binding
Hardback
Language
English
ISBN 10
0393609979
ISBN 13
9780393609974
Item weight
527 grams
Dimensions
9.5 x 1.1 x 6.5 inches

Rarewaves USA

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