Finding your way without satnav? Looking for a hotel without the Internet? Staying in touch without a smartphone? Life without the Internet: would we even still be capable of it today?
Daydreaming, being open to surprises, spending time alone? The Internet may have made our lives more exciting, colorful and fast, but we’ve also lost a lot. In this book, Boris Hänßler invites readers on a funny and melancholy journey to the time before the Internet. He reminds us how we used to drive without a satnav, look for hotels on site while on vacation, stand in front of baffling movie posters and meet the love of our life in the process. The book reminds us how annoyed we used to feel when we’d accidentally tear yet another Fodor’s map, and how happy when we received a handwritten letter or mix tape.
Funny and rife with anecdotes, Boris Hänßler’s account traces how, in a short span of time, our everyday lives changed dramatically, without us even really noticing it. And he bravely ventures to ask whether the resurgence of vinyl stores and bookstores today might not be a sign of our renewed desire for the real, the unplanned and moments of unreachability.
