Type Right

One is of a generation that still recalls using typewriters in the office -- as well as occasionally writing reviews late at night at home on a decrepit, black Olivetti with sticky keys. Now, of course, they're museum pieces. Well, not quite, says Paul Schweitzer, owner of Gramercy Typewriter Co in New York City: “The younger generation says, ‘Who needs typewriters?' It’s not true; there are people who still like hitting the keys.” For example, according to the report, John Irving uses an IBM Selectric. John Updike favours a 1940s Olivetti and Joan Didion writes with a Royal KMM. Maybe one should have hung on to that Olivetti.