The I-Choice

Well, folks here it is:

My new book, freshly printed, the ink still wet. You can buy it here.

Now my publishers are wonderful people and I love them, but it's a small, just-getting-started publishing house, and that means that, in the (almost) words of the old song, they ain't got no money for promotion, they can't give me anything but love (and a press run), baby, and all that jazz.

In other words, they have almost no promotional budget. Which puts me in the slightly embarrassing position of having to promote my own book on this blog and other social media. So I apologize for the lack of due delicacy here, mindful of the line from Fiddler on the Roof that 'A rabbi who praises himself has a congregation of one.'

Seriously folks, though - this is a really good book. Moreover, it is a unique book. I did a ton of research while writing this, and have read all manner of books about technology and its impact on us. There are many great books being written, many of which I cite in this book. But there's nothing quite like the book I have written.

What I found was that, in Catholic circles, most of the writing is basically cheer-leading - 'Get out there, team, into the social media stream, and win one for the Gipper!' We can do it! And of course that is all right and good - who am I to argue? Here I am, after all.

Meanwhile, non-Catholic books sound various alarms about IT - it's effect on relationships, attention spans, analytical skills, human self-concept, privacy, and so forth. And much of that I have drawn on in my book. But these good non-Catholic writers have a serious impediment. They don't actually know what a human being is, what humanity is for, what it's all about. This was the case in virtually all the books I consulted. One author summed it up when he said, "Just in case there is such a thing as humanity, it would be good if we preserved it before it's too late."

I bring to bear, in The I-Choice, a positive, fleshed-out (literally) vision of human life, human experience, grounded in our divine origin and destiny, and show how we need to really think about all the devices and gadgets and what they are doing to us precisely in this real, integrated experience of being human and staying human.

Nobody else as far as I know has written about this, or like this. So... this book deserves a wide readership, and given the small scale of my (excellent) publishers, I'm hoping you all will buy the book, and if you have a blog or social media platform, give me a bit of a plug. Thanks, and hope you enjoy the book.