Many of us also often point to a certain book or movie as having had a powerful effect on us. I grew up in a warm and loving family with many elders to learn from and still I took pleasure in escaping with a book. I loved to read and eventually even pursued a career in the book industry. Even now I can rave about books I loved at various stages in life and still tell with conviction about a certain civilization-challenging novel that changed the way I think and live.

While books are just another form of technology and should never be presumed to be better than life, I don’t really have to ask myself why book discussions may be more valid than endlessly chatting about the latest YouTube sensation.

One of my favorite books of essays is an out-of-print gem called Questioning Technology. It taught me so much about how faulty and damaging our human love of progress can be. Mainly, it encouraged me to seek the simplest tool for any job – rather than the fanciest or latest “labor-saving” device (which one must purchase with hours of waged labor) or the most complicated energy/fuel-consuming machine.

So I still try to question and challenge myself, ad campaigns, the state and its programs, and capitalism itself.

The older I get, the less I know. I’m one of the organizers of the 2012 Winnipeg Anarchist Bookfair. I don’t know how relevant books are anymore. So why have a bookfair?

Although I have been inspired by books – often moved and even motivated to changes – what have I missed out on while I was reading? Why haven’t I learned to read the signs in the dirt and bush instead, to listen to the Earth, to watch the cycles of the spheres for a real education? Books are just a diversion from reality, from the daily struggle.

Yet radical books that challenge the mainstream culture require a commitment of time and thought out of which comes questioning. The thing I like about books is the framework involved and the slowness. The best books take much time to write, edit, re-edit, publish, and work their ways into our collective consciousness. They last and have a lasting impact.
     
Unfortunately, as with every product humans invent, there is an overabundance of book culture and faddishness to book-selling. I try to avoid the bestsellers. Anything that comes and goes in a hurry has little good to say.

The best writing has considered all the angles after time has passed. My favorite response to 9-11 was a Harper’s magazine editorial months later when there were means to understand the causes and effects of that day.

So personally, I have little use for social media and the Internet. Its distractions make it harder to concentrate on books, let alone a walk in the park or a canoe ride on the river.

I feel strongly that the bookfair this weekend is a chance to reconnect with important books, ideas and even people. People talking face to face about books and their impact seems pretty radical in that it helps keep alive the traditions of thinking about injustices and how we can make a better world.

Tim Brandt lives and works in Winnipeg. The Winnipeg Anarchist Bookfair takes place Friday, Sept. 21 to Sunday, Sept. 23 in and around the A-Zone at 91 Albert St. Visit www.winnipegbookfair.blogspot.ca for details and a schedule of events.