ABSTRACT
SI T T I N G H E R E , A T M Y C O M P U T E R , pondering how to start this book, how to introduce my own ‘walkabout’ in cyberspace, I find myself struggling. Maybe it’s because I’ve just been reading and writing about hyperlinks and the web as text – as text, moreover, that is open and infinite, that has no beginning or end. But a book is still a linear thing, decidedly non-hypertexty – despite various authors’ unsuccessful attempts to simulate on paper the experience of the screen (see, for example, Taylor and Saarinen 1994; Case 1996; Bolter and Grusin 1999). So I have to abide by the logic of the book, even if it seems increasingly contradictory in the digital age to do so. The move from books to bytes, to borrow Anthony Smith’s (1993) phrase, is still far from complete – and so here I am, sitting here, the cursor blinking at me, thinking of a way to introduce you to my book.
