In an ongoing effort, we’re identifying anti-TV books and putting them together in one place. Now that were up to 42 titles, the time seems right to put them in a blog post.

Many of these you’re likely familiar with, or at least know about. Jerry Mander’s Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, for example, seems to be one that everyone knows about. But there are some lesser-known gems here. We especially like No Sense of Place by Joshua Myrowitz. This book talks about how TV and other digital media changes our perception of space. What’s especially notable is its prescience. The book was written in 1985, when TV still typically meant only one or two TVs in the home. Yet, its relevance in today’s world of ubiquitous out-of-home digital TV is even greater. In our view it’s one of the must-reads if you’re interested in the social impact of TV.

For each of the books we link to its page on Amazon. We like the way Amazon includes brief descriptions of its books and encourages reader comments. We also like the way the site, when it has permission from the publisher, makes the book contents available for sampling.

We include our book, Noise Wars, here too. We list it first. We certainly want to showcase it, but it’s also the most recently published title, and our list is chronological.

Noise Wars: Compulsory Media and Our Loss of Autonomy (Algora Publishing: 2009), Robert Freedman

The Age of American Unreason (Vintage)(Vintage: 2009), Susan Jacoby

Living Without the Screen (Lea’s Communication)(Routledge: 2008), Marina Krcmar

The Assault on Reason(Penguin: 2008), Al Gore

Media Unlimited, Revised Edition: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives(Holt: 2007), Todd Gitlin

Television(Dalkey Archive Press: 2007), Jean-Philippe Toussaint and Jordan Stump: FICTION

Noise: How Our Media-saturated Culture Dominates Lives and Dismantles Families(Ascension Press: 2007), Teresa Tomeo

Living Outside the Box: TV-Free Families Share Their Secrets(Eastern Washington University Press: 2007), Barbara Brock

Remote Controlled: How TV Affects You and Your Family(Ebury Press: 2007), Aric Sigman

The Big Turnoff: Confessions of a TV-Addicted Mom Trying to Raise a TV-Free Kid(Algonquon Books: 2007), Ellen Currey-Wilson

Mediated: How the Media Shapes Our World and the Way We Live in It(Bloomsbury USA: 2006), Thomas de Zengotita

Noise(Viking: 2006), Bart Kosko

Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing(New Riders Publishing: 2006), Adam Greenfield

iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind(Collins Living: 2008), Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business(Penguin: 2005), Neil Postman

The Business of Media: Corporate Media and the Public Interest(Pine Forge Press: 2005), David Croteau and William Hoynes

The Medium is the Massage(Ginko Press: 2005) Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore

Television after TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition (Console-ing Passions)(Duke Univ. Press: 2004), Lynn Spigel and Jan Olsson

Feed(Candlewick: 2004), M.T. Anderson: FICTION

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media(Pantheon: 2002), Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky

The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life(Penguin: 2002), Marie Winn

T.V.: The Great Escape! : Life-Changing Stories from Those Who Dared to Take Control(Crossway Books: 2001), Bob DeMoss

Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community(Simon & Schuster, 2001), Robert Putnam

Ambient Television: Visual Culture and Public Space (Console-ing Passions)(Duke University Press: 2001), Anna McCarthy

Coercion: Why We Listen to What They Say(Riverhead Trade: 2000), Douglas Rushkoff

Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think And What We Can Do About It(Simon & Schuster: 1999), Jane Healy

Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge–And Why We Must(William Morrow: 1999), Kalle Lasn

Get a Life!(Bloomsbury Publishing: 1998), David Burke and Jean Lotus

Seducing America: How Television Charms the Modern Voter(Sage Publications: 1998), Roderick Hart

The Commercialization of American Culture: New Advertising, Control and Democracy(Sage Publications: 1995), Matt McAllister

…And There Was Television(Routledge: 1994), Ellis Cashmore

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man(The MIT Press: 1994), Marshall McLuhan, with an introduction by Lewis Lapham

The Disappearance of Childhood(Vintage: 1994), Neil Postman

The Unreality Industry: The Deliberate Manufacturing of Falsehood and What It Is Doing to Our Lives(Oxford Univ. Press: 1993), Ian Mitroff and Warren Bennis

Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education (Vintage: 1992), Neil Postman

The Age of Missing Information(Plume: 1993), Bill McKibben

Television and the Quality of Life: How Viewing Shapes Everyday Experience (Communication Series)
(Lawrence Eribaum: 1990), Robert William Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Fahrenheit 451(Ballantine Books: 1987), Ray Bradbury: FICTION

No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior(Oxford Univ. Press: 1985), Joshua Meyrowitz

What to Do After You Turn Off the TV(Ballantine Books: 1985), Frances Moore Lappe

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television(Harper Perennial: 1978), Jerry Mander

The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man(Univ. of Toronto Press: 1962), Marshall McLuhan