"The Tyranny of E-mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox"

Last week, a fellow letter writer, Jeremy, alerted me to an NPR segment I had missed. John Freeman, author of "The Tyranny of E-mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox," was on the Diane Rehm show on Oct. 19, and you can still listen to the interview online! Just click here and then scroll down a little and choose your choice of audio programs under the "Listen to this segment" link on the page.

In the interview, Freeman talks about how he exchanged letters with his grandmother for many years, before she passed away last year.

"It was just the most wonderful way to spend time with her without being with her. The way that she wrote to me, it sort of taught me how to become a person and eventually an adult. Correspondence isn't just about sharing what happened in your day and other information ... especially to a young person, it's a way of teaching them ... how to experience and observe the world. So, I miss those letters quite a bit."

Freeman goes on to discuss how he uses e-mail and how important it is in everyday life. But, he also discusses how often the intended tone of an e-mail is misunderstood and how, in many cases, a letter written in your own handwriting is received as a gift.

"The nice thing about letters is that they move slowly and they have space and they have a kind of texture to them that, almost, novels do...I think there's a speed at which the mind works, which moves with the hand and travels at the speed of letters and that I sort of miss now that people don't send letters quite as much."

It's a great interview, and it sounds like a wonderful book!