Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By,   ISBN:9780810978492

Customer Rating: 

Ok Amazon, you caught me again damn you.. Paying that 15.95 at a brick and mortor place for a book that you sell for far less. Thats what impulse book buying will do to you. This book is a bathroom reader. Another one of those "list" books with a bit of commentary and fact information under each item the author elected to drop into the bucket of products and services that have long since left us. Sort of interesting, a bit boreing in places and sometimes just not accurate at all. Several examples of those show up. She dropped Fax machines into the book as somthing obsolete. Old technology yes but hardly obsolete. Paper still has its place in the world and fax machines are still humming right along in most office and many home settings. Go to any Staples, Office Max or even Amazon and tell them that those 8-10 different brands they have sitting up for display are all obsolete..I have a lot of these gimmick and gadget books on the shelf because they read quick, you can put them down or pick them at anytime and not have to remember where you left off..Books for your brain-dead moments or a book to read while inbetween your other books that you are all ready locked into, but just want to give them a rest..This book however will not be a keeper. It goes to the stack in the garage that eventually ends up at the free store in town. I expect Obsolete will quickly find its way onto the bargain table at the walk-up retail book stores. The price was a ripoff, even Amazon should knock it back to 8.95 at least. Its thin and has the look of a childrens hardbound story book. Not a lot of meat and potatoes. "Obsolete: will quickly become one itself..

Customer Rating: 

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!

Customer Rating: 

I was disappointed in the book. I thought there was going to be more of a story line, or be a satire. Mostly just informative. I thought the book was very boring. I was on a list at the library to check this book out. When I saw that I was the fifth on the list, I decided to buy it. I was going to use it for a gift and wanted to review it first. Sorry I bought it. Maybe I just expected too much, or had a completely wrong idea of what the book was really about. Anyway, I donated my copy to my public library. Perhaps others will enjoy it more than I did. In its defense, it is a great "reference" book.

Customer Rating: 

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.

Customer Rating: 

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.