Do I really have to keep dragging myself into this all the time? Who cares whether or not I'm a vegetarian, and what does that fact have to do with the issues raised in the Boidem and the way in which they're raised?

But of course the answer is that although there is hardly any reason for anyone to care about my eating habits, the manner in which the issues get raised in the Boidem columns is most definitely pertinent to the topic at hand. In fact, it may well be the topic. When I read a book I also read the dust cover. For some reason it actually interests me to know that the author lives with her husband, their two young children, one dog and two cats on a ranch in Northern Nevada (or something similar). It interests me, because it somehow brings the book that I'm reading closer to me, it makes me feel part of an extended family. Rarely does what's written on the dust cover actually affect the way in which I read the book, or my impressions of it, but just having some basic knowledge about the author seems to help focus my reading.

On the web this process is intensified. We often feel that we're reading more about the person who is writing than about the topic he or she is writing about. It often seems as though there's more dust cover than there is book. Partially this is because the absence of the demand for peer-review, or of an editor and publisher who decides that something is fit for print and worth the investment allows people their proverbial fifteen minutes of fame. But it's more than just that. Precisely because we don't have to go through the process of peer-review, or of finding a publisher, we become at least one generation closer to the reader, and the reader in turn gets closer to us. Often, what interests us may well be less the topic being examined, and more the person discussing it.

Go to: For me that's not the proper metaphor, or
Go to: An introduction to the extroduction, or
Go to: Web Essays - The evolution of a (personal?) medium