Follow for Now

Follow for Now is Dan Janal’s Cool Book of the Day today. Dan Janal runs the public relations firm PR Leads, among other things, and I am stoked to have Follow for Now on his book review site.

Many thanks to Dan and his staff over there.

Check it out.

Ann Raber posted this review of Follow for Now on Feminist Review, saying,

The title comes from the lyrics of a Public Enemy song, which is the equivalent of a Jesus fish drawn in the sand for white guys raised in the 1980s. So all of you Wired subscribers who jam Handsome Boy Modeling School and know what “Obey Giant” means, you are among friends.

However, as much as I like guys who like old school hip-hop, Follow for Now has some issues. First of all, the terribly pretentious and off-putting front matter ought to be addressed, lest an unsuspecting reader open up the book and get so icked out by the preface that they toss it aside in horror–which would be a shame.

Lest you think I exaggerate, behold the opening line of the preface: “This book is decidedly eclectic.” I know. It might as well read: “Pretentious self-important douchiness abounds in many forms.”

Ms. Raber clearly likes my book, but does not care for me, and that’s fine. Her review is thorough, and I appreciate her attention to it. My comment over there was only to correct a misquote.

If you’re still interested after all of that, the book is available on Amazon, Powell’s, and right here at followfornow.com.

For my local friends who don’t already have it, my interview anthology, Follow for Now: Interviews with Friends and Heroes (Well-Red Bear, 2007), is now available at Austin’s own MonkeyWrench Books.

I am very stoked to have my work in MonkeyWrench. As their website says, “MonkeyWrench Books is more than just a bookstore. It is a library and educational resource. It is a place for meetings, film screenings, talks, benefits and book readings. It is also a relaxed space to network and make connections over a cup of organic coffee or tea.” They’re located at 110 E. North Loop here in Austin, Texas.
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Finally… You can take a peek inside my interview anthology Follow for Now: Interviews with Friends and Heroes on Amazon. For those that don’t know, Follow for Now is an anthology of forty-three interviews with minds of all kinds. bOING bOING founder Mark Frauenfelder called it “an exotic plant with roots sucking nutrients from the skulls of the most interesting people on the planet,” Disinformation named it “among the most important books published in 2007,” and Erik Davis called it “a crisp and substantial remix of the major memes of the last decade or so.” Read more

The Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies at the University of San Francisco chose Follow for Now as its book of the month for September, 2008. Ellis Godard, who is Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, Northridge, wrote a deep and insightful review of the collection. Read more

Follow for Now is on the NewPages list of New & Noteworthy books for August of 2008 (down at the bottom under “Anthologies”). Awesome!

It gets around… Here’s Dawn checking it out at Beer & Blog a couple of weeks ago:

Here are two copies I left at the Barnes & Noble in Dothan, Alabama. Sneaky.

Gareth Branwyn posted the following to his StreetTech site today:

Follow for Now: Interviews with Friends and Heroes is a collection of interviews put together by Roy Christopher. It features a glowing cavalcade of cyber stars, talking on technology, culture, media, and science. Interviewees include Bruce Sterling, Doug Rushkoff, Brenda Laurel, DJ Spooky, Steven Johnson, Mark Dery, Geert Lovink, and many others. Oh… and ME. At 400 pages long, with interviews conducted over seven years, this is a fascinating group snapshot of key thinkers of the webbed world. Oh… and ME.

Many thanks to Gareth.