Customer Reviews

Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When my daughter tried to return money I had left in her purse, I told her to keep it because a girl should always have change in case she needs to make a phone call. After I said this, I realized how "obsolete" that sounded and was. A kid of this generation would first ask to borrow someone elses cell phone [even a stranger's] rather than use a pay phone... or know how to use one. This book made me aware of these types of time warp moments. A book everyone will enjoy and find interesting.

Anna Jane Grossman creates a truly enjoyable way of bringing back the memories of those nearly forgotten creations, ways of life and past observations. Her modern and so often humorous slant provides the type of encyclopedia that encourages one to pick up her book today as well as in the future.

In these times a look at the past with reminders of how things were - with a laugh out loud - can always find a ready audience.

Sandy Santora

Obsolete is the best of both worlds: it's divided up into digestible bits to satisfy the cravings of a casual reader. But it's also got depth that'll fulfill the reader who wants to learn, reflect and laugh out loud. Obsolete is witty, thoughtful -- and quite possibly the only encyclopedia I will happily read several times, from cover to cover. The only problem I have with it is that not every entry has an entire essay. But hopefully that just means Abram's Image has a second edition in the pipeline!

Anna Jane Grossman's Obsolete was a book I was really looking forward to reading, an encyclopedia of the devices of the past that are no longer used or needed: slide rules, typewriters and such. Unfortunately, you can't always get what you want.

In format, this book is a list of various items that Grossman has designated as obsolete, often with some snarky description of the item. Okay, her humor rarely worked for me, but that is a rather subjective thing. On other, more objective levels, this book fails to live up to its potential.

For one thing, there are clearly items missing, ones that should definitely be in a book like this. Slide rules certainly fit in the "obsolete" category; at one time an essential calculation device, it has since been replaced by calculators and computers which do better jobs at a faster pace. How about tapes? Cassettes, eight-tracks and reel-to-reels are all worthy of mention but are neglected (although she doles mention mix tapes).

Grossman also describes items as obsolete that are really just styles that have fallen out of fashion. Yes, short basketball shorts are no longer used, but not because they are obsolete, but rather just because they are not the style of the moment. Grossman also lists items she may wish were obsolete but aren't there yet, such as books or cash. And then there are layaway purchases: maybe they have fallen out of use, but they're actually making a comeback in this shaky economy.

From a writing standpoint, Obsolete is okay but nothing special. Since it fails to deliver on what it promises, however, I have to rate this with two stars. This book is sadly a disappointment.

Anna Jane Grossman's "Obsolete" is a warmly funny meditation on a topic of universal relevance in the developed world: the cost that the current, unprecedented speed of technological and cultural development exerts on our pocketbooks and peace of mind. Organized into an alphabetized collection of faux-eulogies for vanishing elements of our day-to-day lives, Grossman's book is charmingly unpredictable in tone: eschewing mawkish nostalgia on the one hand and blind optimism about change on the other, Grossman instead reflects both ruefully and amusingly, and not without a certain pride, on the unique status of her generation (she is presumably in her late twenties) as the last to have grown up into, not with, the digital age. The book is frequently laugh-out-loud funny, but never ironically detached or cooler-than-thou: instead, Grossman's wit is good-natured, even earnest, while tinged (I think) with a melancholy uncertainty about the way the world, and possibly the author herself, is headed. There is something of a personal essay about the whole project, despite its encyclopedic layout, but by drawing on her own attachments to dead or dying aspects of her culture, Grossman strikes me as giving voice, with remarkable insight or intuition, to the spirit of the hour--the converging fronts of malaise and optimism in the US during Obama's first term. Although this book as it now stands will serve as a revealing time capsule, one can only hope that Grossman extends and updates the volume in future editions, thus continuing to remind us, with humor and honesty, what change feels like.

The only thing I didn't like about this book is that it made me feel old. Yes, I remember the walkman and the manual typewriter. I learned to type on an old typewriter with black and red ribbon and boxes of erasable tying paper (remember that?).

I saw the author's article in the Huffington Post-- She talked about the Portuguese feeling of "Saudade", which is described as a sort of longing. The national music of Portugal, called Fado, is all about this-- this insatiable longing for things of the past. My entire family is Portuguese, and while I was growing up, I heard the word "saudade" a lot.

This book is a great read; be prepared for a walk down memory lane... it's not about Victorian-era stuff-- this is stuff that I had in my OWN HOUSE. Yes, we owned a rotary phone-- and we only had ONE phone-- a beige rotary monster that weighed about 15 pounds and was made entirely of metal parts. My teenager had no idea what I was talking about when I described it to her. You will have thoughts of high school, record players, and Walkmans.

A very interesting read--I really liked it!

Make no mistake about it: "Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By" is useless.

Ask it to take a photo of your mugging BFF, and it will not comply. Dare it to convert your innermost thoughts into 140 collections of ones and zeroes, and it will refuse. Try to cajole it into retrieving a recipe for devil's food cake, complete with a step-by-step video guide to chocalatey heaven, and it will laugh at you. Wait, strike that. This book can't even play a recording of a single snicker.

Sure, in just a few months' time, researchers and programmers will have taught the books of the world to do these things. And whether we call them notebooks or netbooks or whatever they think of next, Anna Jane Grossman will know where they came from. And she'd be happy to tell you the story.

Obsolete, while calling itself an encyclopedia, reads more like a scrapbook. "Mercury Thermometer: When intact, it could detect illness. When fractured, it could cause it." From an honestly endearing anecdote of an old woman's estate in the introduction to a scathing indictment of the anti-wrinkle industry, Grossman takes the passage of time personally. "[D]ictionary sales have been declining steeply since 2004,...a direct result of...our diminished ability to spell."

I must admit, I am caught between the world of Obsolete and the digital era. Born in the late '80s, I had never even heard of a Telex machine, much less seen someone try to roll a car window up by hand. But I have made it my business (in the least professional sense of the word) to collect the artifacts of bygone eras: I have broken typewriters and vintage cigarette lighters collecting dust under my bed.

Nevertheless, without media blogs and that communication-killer Facebook, I likely never would have seen this book, much less had the urge to spend my precious $16 (in cash!). I have a hard time condemning the tools of the 21st century when they bring so many new experiences to my life.

After all, how can one mourn the loss of the boom box without touting its triumph over the turntable? Can we blame DVDs for killing the video star when VHS tapes drew the same blood from reel-to-reel? Obsolescence, it seems, purchases short-term memories with the funds deposited by their predecessors.

Debate the point with Grossman. Buy the book. If you're looking for a fastidious examination of the ultimate failure of ColecoVision, this isn't the tome for you. If you prefer your history lessons-cum-standup comedy wrapped in a slightly more summery blanket of tongue-in-cheek wistfulness, I couldn't possibly recommend Obsolete to you any more. This author's sophomore effort bears the stamp of a true writer: prose that's thoughtful, intelligent, enjoyable, relevant, and lickable. Well, that stamp is, at least.

If I can remember almost everything in that book, does that mean I'm obsolete, too? A fun read and I was amazed at how many of those things I was actually familiar with. It's not a very long book and you can read it in short bursts.

Anna Jane Grossman's effort to remind us of so many of the things we once took for granted that have suddenly (and quietly) vanished from our lives is both intriguing and fun to read. While I believe the book definitely offered a taste for my hunger for nostalgia, I found it somewhat unfulfilling in the end.

"Obsolete" is thought-provoking in that it does make one realize how once-seemingly indispensible "things" have somehow simply disappeared in our society's race toward the technological future. Presented in an alphabetized/encyclopedic format, Grossman's range of topics for all-things obsolete are diverse (ditto-paper or easy to open packaging), humorous (handkerchiefs), expected (typewriters) and occasionally odd (wrinkles). Some of the topics covered are simply addressed with a witty, sarcastic quip (anonymity), while others delve deeply into the history of the subject matter (film). In this regard, "Obsolete" scores big points as being both entertaining and informative. While it isn't exactly baffling to understand the downfall of stuffing mucous-covered cloth into pockets for re-use, it is interested how our society has gradually snuffed the art of cursive writing. Grossman definitely does the research on several topics and her efforts often provide a curiosity-satisfying history that led to the flourish of things that have since disappeared.

While the book is oftentimes educational and fun to read, I was hoping for more considering there are so many common things have disappeared in recent years. Maybe this is expecting too much from the author, but when a subtitle includes the word "encyclopedia", I expect the content to reveal more, not less. While brevity could have benefited some of the topics covered and more detail provided for others, I still believe what Grossman presents is worthy. The only other issue I have with "Obsolete" is that the silly artwork that illustrates many of the topics is unnecessary and photos would have been great.

As technology advances quicker than most of us can keep up with, this book is both a nostalgic and humorous ride down memory lane! Rather than a book you tire of and eventually discard, you'll want to keep it in plain sight for company to enjoy for a long, long time!