The Reviews are in, The Peep Diaries is a ...

Pacific Sun Review of Peep

Marin County newspaper review of Peep. Check it out here:

This is the last couple of sentences:

“And as the Peep Diaries discovers, the more we become connected by computers through our obsessions with “reality,” the more disconnected we become from reality. For anyone interested in what the last two decades have found us immersed in, Niedzviecki’s book is a must-read.”

Peep is “Dark-Horse Nominee for Book of the Year”

William McKeen, chairman of the University of Florida’s Department of Journalism, has named The Peep Diaries his “Dark-Horse Nominee for Book of the Year” in his Book Blog on Florida’s The Daily Loaf.

He writes:

“This has been much on my mind lately because of The Peep Diaries (City Lights Books, $17.95) by Hal Niedzviecki (above). This book has preoccupied me since it came out in the summer and I’m wondering if it might end up being one of those prescient, influential books like David Reisman’s The Lonely Crowd. As everyone else starts the December look back at the year, this is my dark-horse nominee for most significant book of 2009.”

 

 

Peep Diaries on Now Magazine’s Best of 2009 List

Toronto’s Now Magazine has Peep on its best of 2009 list, give it a read here.

“Niedzviecki looks at what he calls peep culture and the social ramifications of people’s passion for watching and being watched. Really smart.”

Peep Diaries A Globe and Mail Top Book 2009

Happy to say that The Peep Diaries appears on the Globe and Mail Top 100 books of 2009 list. Check it out.

Enjoy the Peep Show: Review in Reason Magazine

A short review of The Peep Diaries in the October issue of Reason Magazine is here.

It’s by Bill Flanigen from the October 2009 issue. Here’s a sample:

Niedzviecki avoids the doomsaying that plagues so much commentary about sociotechnological change. While he discusses Peep’s troubling implications for privacy, surveillance, and criminal justice, he also recognizes that interconnectivity can be empowering, educational, and entertaining. Peep’s potential to add value to our lives deserves such reflective appreciation. 

Hal Talks Peep in the Edmonton Journal

I love the opening of this interview!

The interview with Hal Niedzviecki is off to a limping start.

The Canadian culture critic answers the phone in a distracted sort of way, with the sound of click-clicking in the background.

I know that sound. It’s the sound of attention in split screen: Phone conversation one side, Internet conversation on the other.

Me: “Are you addicted to the Internet, Hal?”

Niedzviecki: “No. Maybe. Yes.”

Nice. Read the rest of this interview in the Edmonton Journal.

Hal on the cover of FastForward

Hey nice feature on Peep including a cool cover shot in Calgary’s alternative weekly FastForward. I’ll be in Calgary and Banff next week, doing a bunch of events at Calgary’s great literary festival WordFest. More on that shortly, but here’s a link to my events at the festival next week.

Review of Peep in The Weekender - Times Leader

Nice review of The Peep Diaries in Times Leader Weekender - Wilkes-Barre, PA. Give it a read here.

Ottawa Citizen on The Peep Diaries

A great take on the ideas I raise in the book. Read it here.

Short excerpt:

For good or ill, it’s almost certainly unavoidable. “In the future,” Niedzviecki writes, “not partaking in Peep culture may mean your disappearance. You’ll be a living ghost; you’ll move amongst the rest of us, but if we can’t access your profile, we won’t notice or care about you.”

In The Peep Diaries, Hal Niedzviecki illuminates the landscape of Peep with acuity and clear-headed prose. An important topic. An important book.

Frustrating Review in the San Francisco Chronicle

This is an interesting, if frustrating, review of The Peep Diaries: the reviewer doesn’t seem to like the book, and relies primarily on sweeping statements that dismiss my arguments. I would have liked more specifics, from the real world and from my book, to have been raised by way of demonstrating why I am wrong about just about everything. For instance, the reviewer’s most damning accusation is this: “Why we want so desperately to give up privacy mostly eludes Niedzviecki.” Okay then, how exactly does it elude me, and why are we do desperate to give up privacy? What follows reads like a kind of riddle:

“Why we want so desperately to give up privacy mostly eludes Niedzviecki. The line between exercising individuality or surrendering it is blurry. Liberalism thrives on people’s desire for split personas. We might as well question fiction, diaries and intimate letters. Self-expression merges reality and fiction. This discomforts Niedzviecki, who makes a fetish of ‘the real.’ Questioning the reality of the self is a starting point for likewise questioning religion, nation and history. One of Niedzviecki’s subjects, who let his life be distorted (edited?) for reality TV, likens it to torture. But Peep culture denizens voluntarily give up privacy. Art is driven by the urge for commonality, even as the audience is uncertain (Niedzviecki is torn by this paradox).”

Lots of interesting stuff to think about and parse in there, but it’s all generalization, nothing specific, nothing substantive. I like the questioning tone, I just don’t like the sweeping pronouncements.

Any responses and thoughts people?

The Book: The Peep Diaries

The Peep Diaries will be Published by City Lights Books in May 2009
ISBN 1991022

Buy The Peep Diaries Right Now:
In the United States: www.citylights.com
In Canada: Chapters/Indigo Amazon:

The Publisher: City Lights

City Lights Books

City Lights Publishers

In June of 1955, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, co-founder of City Lights Bookstore, launched City Lights Publications with the Pocket Poets Series. The first volume was a collection of his own poems, Pictures of the Gone World, which has since become a classic of beat literature and… more...

Author! Author!

Hal Niedzviecki is a writer, culture commentator and editor whose work challenges preconceptions and confronts readers with the offenses of everyday life. He is the author of six books including the novel The Program and the nonfiction book The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves… more...