This volume explores the axioms and core issues of what it means to be "interactive". The segments are cross-sectioned so that the reader can learn to understand and implement the basic concepts behind interactivity.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Just how interactive can a printed book really be? That's one of the many questions addressed in this intriguingly playful compendium. Celia Pearce delivers a core dump of her thoughts on interactivity and related topics. She is bright, insightful, and funny, and her thoughts are well worth browsing--which is the only sensible way to approach this decidedly nonlinear book. It does have a structure--an alphabetical one with essays from "A Life of One's Own" to "Word to the Motherboard: Computers and Literacy"--but the sections are linked as if they were hypertext. When you come to the end of one essay, you'll find the pages you could jump to for a related topic. The term "essay" is also a little misleading as you'll also find riffs, anecdotes, philosophical musings, and comic insights. Topics range from cyberhistory to art to game design to the pros and challenges of virtual reality. What you won't find is dry pontification about interactivity. Just an enjoyable way to experience it without having to plug in anything but your mind.
From the Publisher
The Interactive Book succeeds in creating a non-linear interactive experience within the confines of a linear format. The 110+ segments of the book that explore the axioms and core issues of what it means to be interactive are cross-referenced to one another. This enables the reader to experience the book not cover-to-cover, but in a direction that most provokes them.The design/project manager/reader-at-large will learn to understand and implement the basic concepts and psychology behind interactivity as it becomes a predominant issue with the technological evolution that is now an inherent part of society and everyday routine. - Theories of interactivity discussed from a non-technical, human perspective for all media types
- Written by a proven visionary who shares hard-to-find experience in this discipline
- Interactivity is explored with a focus on sociological, cultural, psychological, and cognitive implications
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Seemingly interactive just for the sake of it.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive Revolution (Paperback)
Celia Pearce's, The Interactive Book, is certainly an interesting and unusual book. The author tries to demonstrate interactivity by having the book written in a non-linear fashion. This book is not for those who are particulary interested in learning about the various topics that are addressed in this book. The contents of the book are certainly not what makes this book for most of the random articles are written in her opinion and personal experiences, nothing too beneficial to the reader. But what does come through to the audience is her idea of allowing every reader to "choose" their own unique experience with the book. The format of the book is quite interesting and Pearce does accomplish her task somewhat successfully, but the mere fact that the book offers a different method of reading is not enough to keep the reader "interactive" with the book.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A "choose your own adventure" book of the future.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive Revolution (Paperback)
This book is a vast overview of all of the subject areas that have been affected by the changing technology. Although the author does not delve into each of these topics, she does a good job of briefly describing them. This book was written with a very personal spin. Ms. Pearce has a tendency to include her opinion in most articles of the book. This book was written much like a "choose your own adventure" book from childhood. However, not all of the links are truely connected to the main article. The idea of jumping from piece to piece is an interesting one, but it still needs to be perfected. The Interactive Book is a good attempt at the reading of the future; however, it may have been better off on the web.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
good for novelty only, author's voice irritating,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive Revolution (Paperback)
It is clear through reading the introduction alone, what Celia Pearce is trying to do here. It seems she, in the format of a book, is trying to give us all a taste of the wonders of the internet. And to get us as pumed up about it's social benefits as she is. What she fails to notice, and this addresses only the preface, is that whether a family is watching a tv screen or "building a family room in cyberspace," they are still staring at a blinking screen, and still missing many opportunities to enrich themselves through the real world around them. Not that the internet is not enriching. The internet is an amazing cultural and technological advancement. It is quite a feat, and the ocean of knowledge and information it presents us is staggering, to say the least. But do we really need to be told this again? The layout of the book is as such: Preface, wherein Miss Pearce tells us all about her excellence and the mammoth contribution to the evolutionary and cultural minds of readers that this book represents. Introduction: much of the same, except that now she begins to tell us (assuming that we live in hovels and are still pecking away at the keyboards of our 1985 IBM PC's, and that we have never even heard of Windows 98, much less used the internet) the many wonders of the internet on a cultural level, and with a voice that somehow manages to make an obviously brilliant woman seem uneducated and overly-enthusiastic. Eureka! she cries as she rediscovers an already existant, already manifested product of human evolution. In the Forewqard, we listen to more praise of Miss Pearce, except someone else is writing it, and it is a little less annoying that the rest of the introduction. Right off the bat, I am thoroughly annoyed with this book. Whether it is by an unprecedented enthusiasm that seems to be years late, or a sheer lack of modesty makes no difference; the voice of the author is and remains as irritating as a 112 degree day in summer with no shade to be found anywhere. Sunburns aside, her intention does seem to be a good one. The rest of the book comprises a series of generally unrelated essays, followed by what she calls "hyperlinks" to other essays, that are supposed to (although few actually do) have something to do each other. It is an attempt to encourage the reader to create their own linear paths through the incoherent string of essays and treatises presented. There are two main problems with this. One; the essays are non related in every sense. I began this book by reading an essay called "The ADD Generation," and wound up, 3 essays and some 100 pages later, reading a piece called "Digital Socialism." No amount of thinking i could do, aside from perhaps writing my own in deoth book on the subject could relate these two things. The second problem is in the essays themselves. The "wealth of information" presented to us here is nothing more than one womans opinions. There is no alternate arguement, no other view of similar or same topics at our disposal. Unless the reader is willing to take her word for it with no questioning, which I certainly am not, the reading is entirely unsatisfying. Another annoyance is that what she is doing, no matter how vehemently she claims it to be, is not by any means ground-breaking. This sort of interactivity in a book has been around since the mid eighties. Remember the "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels we used to read in grade school? It is exactly the same thing, only less interesting and with larger words. At the end, this book was a waste of time. The author's voice predominates the entire reading in an irritating, pushy sort of way, and the information is poorly presented and badly timed. If she published this concurrent to the introduction of the internet, her enthusiasm would be understood and appreciated. But at this point, it seems out of place and irksome. It's like getting really excited every time you see your chair. It is a household fixture. You deal with it everyday. It must be exhausting to waste so much energy singing the praises of something which we all well know the worth of. What is the point? Final analysis: If you are up for a scattered, bothersome tour of one womans opinions and excitement about various well-known cyber-related topics, by all means, buy, read and enjoy this book. If you are looking for substance and not novelty, it may be wiser to simply get on the internet and explore an ever greater expanse of information in an even more interactive way.
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