The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist’s Companion for the 21st Century

Typewriters were first developed as tools for speed and standardization, and were treated as archaic after the advent of computers, explains Polt, a typewriter repairman and founder of the Classic Typewriter Page website. Polt aims to change the typewriter’s out-of-date reputation with his book celebrating the overlooked perks of using one. He explains how to find and fix a machine, includes testimonies from writers on the freeing power of tapping out a story on a typewriter, and describes the innovative ways that people are using the typewriter today. Polt can’t quite balance his anticomputer, mock-radical rhetoric (beginning with a manifesto that starts off “We assert our right to resist the Paradigm, to rebel against the Information Regime, to escape the Data Stream”) with his insistence that the typewriter revolution is not antidigital, though he devotes much of the end of the book to a thoughtful look at the combining of typewriters and computer technology. But considering the book as a love letter instead of a call to arms makes it quite enjoyable for anyone who likes the clack of keys and the ring of the carriage return. Color photos. (Nov.)