Travels of Deloris Koan: Books, screens and the battle for truth in a distracted world

Voices I hear as the sweat drips and I feel faint. If I have to look at one more damn book! It’s Saturday afternoon and I am at work.

The aircon is off. My friend Nick “The Dawnie” Pike is proclaiming the greatness of the flooring — that’s his game when he is not out surfing or fishing — and the excellence of the modern architecture. Industrial brutalism, a sweat shop by any other name, I mutter as the drops literally plop onto the covers.

They will be repurposed by our local hero winners back into local society to be enjoyed by others who may not have the bucks to buy these treasure troves of information, stories, education, wisdoms, life. A few years ago, an old journo connoccio put this way when he was cast out, yet again: “Make yourself clever.” And he did by engrossing himself with the incoming new order — he basically played with his cellphone. The other day he was made journalist of the year.

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So what’s it to be? YouTube, Insta or words in ink on a page? My greatest worry is I cannot pull my eyes away from my screen — and the tech bros know that, because they made it like that, clever so-and-sos. I grew up with a little library in my cupboard in King Edward Road, Cambridge.

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