{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.028405797101449276, 'fraction_numerical': 0.004057971014492754, 'mean_word_length': 5.392592592592592, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Know Your Remedies: Pharmacy and Culture in Early Modern China by He Bian (review)

244 though not without controversy. As Rubery outlines, though braille books cost up to twenty times their ink-print equivalents, and only a small percentage of blind people could read braille, talking books were perceived as low-brow literacy for “chair warmers” too lazy to learn raised type (p. 71). Even Helen Keller, the American author and disability rights activist, initially rejected recorded books, fearing they would supersede philanthropic endeavors to support braille, but she changed her stance once the Library of Congress convinced its blind patrons that learning braille was an “intellectual accomplishment.” Letters to the American Foundation of the Blind reveal how readers relished the “glorious independence” talking books provided and perceived them as books that could engage “trained readers” without any obligation or difficulty. The Library of Congress book selection process and the preferences to maintain “bookishness,” however, speak to a larger cultural ideology of citizenship. The debates about which books to select for recording and the policy of “Straight Reading” with no theatrical style—that Caedmon Records would later reverse—are what Rubery calls the “politics of narration” (p. 99). Narrator voices were essential to the success of a talking book, but also received increased scrutiny from campaigners for social equality; audiences wanted talking books to reflect their authors’ voices, not merely recorded by white men. The privileges of narrative voice and the later discussion about book censorship are the most fascinating aspects of Rubery’s study that this reader wishes were more developed.