I just read an article about the Amazon Kindle and whether its popularity is going to ruin the book industry. I always like to say that the ONLY constant in my life is my love of reading. Despite anything I'm going through or feeling, I can always read. I've read like a madwoman since the day I learned how, and my passion is equally spent on books themselves, the actual paper, the binding, the heft in the hand, the smell of the page.
But I have a Kindle, and I love it.
In the article, Sherman Alexie, the novelist said something to the order of: I saw a woman reading a Kindle in an airplane and I wanted to punch her in the face.
I'm rolling my eyes at that. My Kindle isn't taking the place of my books -- they're scattered literally everywhere and live, even, inside of my head. I think his comment is ridiculously pretentious -- the worst kind of whine.
I'm a bit of a literary snob, I suppose (although the photo above of the library book is actually the FIRST thing by Bellow that I've ever read), and a Luddite, certainly, when it comes to Twitter and some of the more advanced computer stuff out there. But the Kindle is really just like a book, to me. Perhaps a little colder, it hasn't taken the place of my "real" books. It's just added to them in a far more compact way.
I wonder if Sherman Alexie will energetically refuse to have any of his works inside the little wonderful traveling companion that is Kindle.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I love mine. And continue to buy books that I don't have to carry with me, but that surround me like good friends in our home. What Sherman Alexie needs to do is to take a course in anger management, me thinks.
I am your bookworm sister.
ReplyDeleteWhat the heck is a kindle. Is it that white thing. Let me just get out from under the rock I have been under. Looks cool.
xoxox
OH Renee, thank you. I'm going to google Kindle. Check out all of us Luddites hanging out in one spot.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I think books are next on the chopping block. First come newspapers, then come books. I think magazines will stick around a lot longer -- more pictures, slick, glossy (for the most part).
ReplyDeleteKindle is not going to single-handedly kill the publishing industry, but publishing on paper is a dying form.
Same with DVDs, CDs -- all that stuff. "Hard" media is a dying form.
Here's what E-Niner has to say:
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I was the recipient of a Kindle for Mother's Day/Early retirement, as we are moving to a very rural area in the midwest-the middle of Amish country. I view it as a way to take some of my old life (NY Times) to my new life. My aim is to simplify and beautify and own less things. The Kindle will do this-as the Ipod does for the music in my life. Just culture contained in a new form.
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