A Is for Ox: The Collapse of Literacy and the Rise of Violence in an Electronic Age Paperback – September 26, 1995

I read it when it was first published and have never forgotten it. I think I appreciate it even more today that I did at the time.

This is a difficult book.Sanders discusses, in 244 pages of exquisitely erudite prose, the likelihood that “literacy has surely drained out of this [our] culture.”He stumbles, I think, in providing too much—indeed, redundant—detail about the dangerously harmful impact of conspicuous social ills—like gangs and computer screen time and the bureaucratic failures of our education system—on the very fundamental and essential human talents for reading and writing and imagination.His arrows hit the target. A is for Ox is an indictment of the permissive unraveling of our human society and civilization.I do not hesitate to understand that Sanders is smarter than me. I want to think that I’m the kind of person for whom he wrote the book. I will continue to struggle to understand what’s happening to American society. I think it’s true that the subtle explanations can’t be found on the Google. of my book reviews hererichardsubber.com Read more

A fascinating look into the meaning of literacy, and into exactly why we might want to take a closer look at what we fill ourselves with in terms of modern media.Especially interesting as a parent is the neurological explanation of why we should be telling our children stories, reading in the home, reading with them, and giving them the opportunity to generate their own images instead of feeding them premade ones on TV, in films and video games.Our addiction to modern technology and media- far from enhancing our interactions with each other, as may be popularly believed- is isolating us from each other and creating situations where human contact seemingly no longer has much meaning or influence. The extrapolation of this scenario leads to frightening conclusions. It is through being able to reflect and think for ourselves, capacities that are brought about through literacy, that we can contribute to our collective humanity.I cannot say enough about what this book has done for my understanding of this topic. I read it 2 years ago now, and I am still gaining new insights from it.

Sanders does a wonderful job articulating the reasoning behind many current debates about language, education, literacy, and the shifting definition of written communication. I highly recommend this book, along with Leonard Shlain's The Alphabet versus the Goddess (which offers an alternative view) as food for thought to anyone who teaches, designs, communicates...

Very interesting, thought provoking book.