Granta Editor John Freeman Takes Tweeting To Task In The Tyranny Of Email

John Freeman, editor of Granta Magazine and the award winning former president of the National Book Critics Circle traces a short history of our need for correspondence and examines the astonishing growth of email–and how it is changing our lives, not always for the better.

The Tyranny of Email draws on extensively on the research of linguistics, behavioral sciences, cultural critics, and philosophers to take a fascinating look at the unrelenting nature of correspondence through the ages, and explores how that nature has manifested itself in email.  As the toll of email mounts, reducing our time for leisure and contemplation, and separating us from each other in an unending and lonely battle with the overfull inbox. Freeman enters a plea for communication that is more selective and nuanced, and, above all, more sociable.

John Freeman is an award-winning writer and book critic who’s written for a variety of publications including The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, People, and The Wall Street Journal. Freeman won the 2007 James Patterson page-turner award, and was recently named American editor of Granta. He lives in New York City.

Recorded Wednesday, October 28, 2009.

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