Moby Dick: A Book Before It's Time

At the time of publication, Melville only sold 500 copies of Moby Dick in the UK compared to 6,700 copies of his first book Typee; although it sold fairer in the US with 3,215 copies, it still sold less than four previous books by him (source). Considering how famous the book is now, what is something Ishmael is doing that gets his every day journal entries, random rantings, and mini lectures so many views? Perhaps it isn't the book itself finally getting credit where it's due, but in this day of age the readers have adapted to the book's style. To put in layman's terms: Ishmael is actually a first edition blogger.

Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man and Digital Culture Participants

I am reading McLuhan's Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man to hopefully understand more about different types of media. I'm told that this book has been discussed a lot through the years (despite being dated - it was published in 1964), and it proposes that media itself, not its content, should be the focus of study. Since we've been talking about curation and I've been looking into the idea of "the man behind the post," I'm hoping I'll get some more ideas and viewpoints from reading this.

Preview
No pictures in 396 pages of content (but at least I can turn to page 394...). Other than that quick observation, I think McLuhan's going to really focus on his idea that media is what changes society and not the content it produces/supplies. It's broken into Part I and Part II, with Part I introducing his ideas, but Part II focusing on different types of media and the power of the "written word." There's a lot of metaphors - something about a light bulb and "hot media" vs "cold media."