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Bill McKibben, The Age of Missing Information (Random House, 1992) Reissued in paperback by Plume in 1993 McKibben, a New Yorker writer who has been called a "Thoreau wannabe," watched more than 1700 hours of television that occurred over a 24-hour period on the Fairfax, Va. cable system, comparing that experience to 24 hours he spent in the Adirondack woods. That conceit, while hardly ingenious, does allow McKibben to focus on television content rather than the usual TV analysis: Does it lead to violence? And How is it ruining the youth of America? Like Charles Sopkin in Seven Fun-Filled Days, Seven Fun-Filled Nights (1968), McKibben's question in The Age of Missing Information is, "What's on?" "Not much" is the expected answer. McKibben's analysis of what a typical day of television consists of, and the richer lessons nature has to teach us, is clear and pointed, but it's hard to dispute Publisher Weekly 's assessment that the book is "worthy but belabored." MORE: McKibben’s Website Utne Reader article about McKibben A catalog of McKibben’s New York Review of Books articles |
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