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I dunno ... the "spokespeople" for the reporter's point-of-view are oddly chosen. It starts with a playwright who owns a car and an iPad ... finding any playwright earning enough money for a car and an iPad is a rarity.
Then there is the blogger who is delighted to be able to "read" while walking the dog.
Or the development manager for a well-known non-profit who doesn't "know how to use my iPod" but can read on her Kindle and Kindle app for her iPhone. Apparently she reads "in hard copy on my Kindle" and, because Amazon has "a lot of the classics for free, so I'll read a few pages when I'm in line".
Then there's a novelist and English professor who pipes up to say, no, it's the books not worth reading more than once he likes as ebooks.
And the local morning radio host who adds that he views books as clutter: "It's largely a clutter thing ... I don't let a book into my house if I don't think I'm going to read it more than once". Somewhat obtusely he adds: "Now I have all these electronic versions of Dickens that I cannot read electronically ... It makes me feel good to know I have Dickens even though I know I'm probaly never going to get through it."
The founder and president of a local small press likes ebooks because if she's not sure of the title: "if it is only a peripheral interest and I don't read the whole book, it's OK." A quick surf to her corporate website confirms not one of her publishing house titles are available as an ebook.
There there is the poet and assistant professor of English who "wrote" Poetry Foundation's Twitter feed last summer. "Poetry is one of the forms that defies the short attention span. Poetry is a way of paying attention."
And another novelist and professor of English who writes "flash fiction" (very short stories) "because they're easier for grazing online readers to digest".
Though the article title is "For ebook devotees, reading is a whole new experience", my hope it that people are choosing dedicated ereaders because they actually like to read long form fiction and not because they can catch 40 words in a “session” while walking the dog or be able to download a new bestseller while in the waiting room of their dentist.
Damning with faint praise?
Helpfully, the founder of Goodreads refused to take credit for Goodreads.com changing the way we read. "I think that what's changed is how people discover books and share books."
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