Virginia Heffernan

Just as Susan Sontag did for photography and Marshall McLuhan did for television, Virginia Heffernan (called one of the “best living writers of English prose”) reveals the logic and aesthetics behind the Internet. Since its inception, the Internet has morphed from merely an extension of traditional media into its own full-fledged civilization. It is among mankind’s great masterpieces—a massive work of art. As an idea, it rivals monotheism. We all inhabit this fascinating place. But its deep logic, its cultural potential, and its societal impact often elude us. In this deep and thoughtful book, Virginia Heffernan presents an original and far-reaching analysis of what the Internet is and does. Life online, in the highly visual, social, portable, and global incarnation rewards certain virtues. The new medium favors speed, accuracy, wit, prolificacy, and versatility, and its form and functions are changing how we perceive, experience, and understand the world.

The Internet as Art

Magic and Loss

Aubrey Hicks

I’ve been reading this is slow bursts for a few months. I adore Heffernan’s writing. Magic and Loss is a love letter, a manifesto, a call to look at the complexity and hope of the digital expansiveness that is the Internet. I feel like more would make it less of a discovery. 

Loved this. Highly Recommended. Excellent Prose. Delightful. Hopeful.

Melanie Richards

I’m so disappointed by this book. Forgive me for taking the title at its word but I thought it would be about...art...on the internet. Curious corners of the web. Instead it was that insufferable high-brow artspeak applying some BS meaning to social media. Surely there’s a way to look at all this subject matter and make meaning observations but the crap she makes up didn’t even seem accurate? Then there’s a rambling, weirdly problematic personal story for the last 60 pages about God which I GUESS is supposed to have some tenuous connection to The Cloud. Ugh. It is bad.

David Bielenberg

John Manoogian III

Anna

Kevin Spachuk

Kevan Lee

Sameer Vasta

Virginia Heffernan “melds the personal with the increasingly universal in a highly informative analysis of what the Internet is—and can be. A thoroughly engrossing examination of the Internet’s past, present, and future” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) from one of the best living writers of English prose. This book makes a bold claim: The Internet is among mankind’s great masterpieces—a massive work of art. As an idea, it rivals monotheism. But its cultural potential and its societal impact often elude us. In this deep and thoughtful book, Virginia Heffernan reveals the logic and aesthetics behind the Internet, just as Susan Sontag did for photography and Marshall McLuhan did for television. Life online, in the highly visual, social, portable, and global incarnation rewards certain virtues. The new medium favors speed, accuracy, wit, prolificacy, and versatility, and its form and functions are changing how we perceive, experience, and understand the world. In “sumptuous writing, saturated with observations that are simultaneously personal, cultural, and strikingly original” (The New Republic), Heffernan presents “a revealing look at how the Internet continues to reshape our lives emotionally, visually, and culturally” (The Smithsonian Magazine). “Magic and Loss is an illuminating guide to the Internet...it is impossible to come away from this book without sharing some of Heffernan’s awe for this brave new world” (The Wall Street Journal).

Magic and Loss The Internet as Art

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