A book isn't noise to drown out other noise.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I can't imagine writing a novel without some sound. When you're facing a few hundred blank pages, silence can be cold.
Books are such quiet things - created in silence, read in silence - yet publishing a book has become a very noisy business. I've been noisy, too. I felt like I had to be in order to connect with my readers.
Noise is a parasite. Anything noisy is poorly designed.
It seems to me that the novel as a medium has a very low signal-to-noise ratio. By which I mean: there are a lot of novels published, but the vast majority of them don't represent major contributions to the medium.
I often get asked, 'Is the book dead?' It hasn't happened yet. It's different than music. Music was always meant to be pure sound - it started out as pure sound and now it's pure sound again. But books started out as things. Words on paper began as words on paper. The paperback book is the best technology to deliver that information to you.
Quiet is better than loud.
I am not in the business of suppressing books.
I don't listen to anything when I'm writing. I need total quiet, which is astounding, given that I spent years working for a newspaper and having to write features surrounded by ringing phones and people shouting.
I write in a noisy, distracting world so the books can be read there.
These are books that want to be read out loud. These are books kids share with each other, and I think that's important.