Kindle hinders literary snobbism

markbot · 04-25-2009, 05:08 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/fa...hf7PTWvOoFLDwA

When I invite a girl over to my pad, the Kindle makes it more difficult to bed her....since I have fewer books on my shelf to impress her with.

whitearrow · 04-25-2009, 05:14 PM

Yeah, I read this too.

-2 dumb

sirbruce · 04-25-2009, 05:54 PM

Ron Burgundy: I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.

Veronica Corningstone: Really.

Ron Burgundy: People know me.

Veronica Corningstone: Well, I'm very happy for you.

Ron Burgundy: I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.

JSWolf · 04-25-2009, 08:31 PM

If I like to read using my 505, then what does it matter that the content is not in pBook form? It's more important that I am enjoying what I am reading. Do I have to advertise to some strange lady what I am reading so she can have fantasies about me and that book? Nope, I can keep what I am reading private to just me if I so choose. And those of you that have erotic fantasies abou people with pBooks, go get help.

DixieGal · 04-25-2009, 09:09 PM

Where do they keep digging up these clowns? That was one of the funnier things I've read lately, but not funny like Hal Spacejock. I have a few quotes that I would like to respond to:

“It’s really expensive,” she said of the Kindle 2, which Amazon sells for $359. “If you’re going to pay that, you’re giving a statement to the world that you like to read — and you’re probably not using it to read a mass market paperback.”

Really? Because I recently chucked a whole bookshelf of classics, you know, the books I studied for my degree in literature, and you know, I'll download them if I ever care to read them again.

"The publishing world is all caught up in weighty questions about the Kindle and other such devices: Will they help or hurt book sales and authors’ advances? Cannibalize the industry? Galvanize it? "

Need I say anything? And this came out yesterday - FRIDAY!

"Michael Silverblatt, host of the weekly public radi
o show “Bookworm,” uses the term “literary desire” to describe the attraction that comes with seeing a stranger reading your favorite book or author. “When I was a teenager waiting in line for a film showing at the Museum of Modern Art and someone was carrying a book I loved, I would start to have fantasies about being best friends or lovers with that person,” he said."

Aw, Mikey, I'm embarrassed for you. Didja ever touch a real girl after all?

thibaulthalpern · 04-25-2009, 09:22 PM

We're forgetting the materiality of the printed book. Sure, for many books the text is primarily it. But, for many other kinds of books, content is not just in the form of easily translatable form that can be represented in other medium. That's where the materiality comes in. The materiality of a book cannot be reproduced on a digital screen.

We keep conflating information and materiality, as if one were the other necessarily. By we, I include internet pundits, experts, and scholars. We keep forgetting there is a materiality that cannot be reproduced and that materiality can matter--not in all cases but in many cases.

DixieGal · 04-25-2009, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thibaulthalpern

We're forgetting the materiality of the printed book.

True, you are right that there is value and pleasure in the substance of a printed book. But when it is taken from you, such as losing your vision or in a fire, it becomes clear how ephemeral a book really is.

I dunno, beginning to think like I'm in the Conservatory.

lilac_jive · 04-25-2009, 09:49 PM

Uhhh I buy mostly mass market paperbacks for my Sony...don't know what this chick is talking about.

And I like that no one can see my sovers. Some of those romance covers are embarassing. Plus no one needs to know what I'm reading.

Gideon · 04-25-2009, 09:51 PM

I dunno... I once talked to a girl in a bookstore about various translations of the Illiad... I was absolutely in love!

I'm certainly guilty of checking out people's bookshelves....

But you really can't make much of it. I know some brilliant, educated people who have less than impressive libraries, and plenty of people with good libraries who are absolute morons.

Great conversation starters, though...

Steven Lyle Jordan · 04-25-2009, 09:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by markbot

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/fa...hf7PTWvOoFLDwA

When I invite a girl over to my pad, the Kindle makes it more difficult to bed her....since I have few books on my shelf to impress her with.

*sigh*

...try fuzzy handcuffs.

Recently I went to a new friend's house. On one wall was a long waist-high shelf, on which I was told there once resided hundreds of LPs. There, in the middle of shelves now decorated with a few spare knick-knacks and nothing more, sat an iPod in a stereo dock.

Did I think less of the person, because he ditched all those albums for an iPod?

Heck no. I heard what he was playing.

krisk · 04-25-2009, 10:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

*sigh*

...try fuzzy handcuffs.

Recently I went to a new friend's house. On one wall was a long waist-high shelf, on which I was told there once resided hundreds of LPs. There, in the middle of shelves now decorated with a few spare knick-knacks and nothing more, sat an iPod in a stereo dock.

Did I think less of the person, because he ditched all those albums for an iPod?

Heck no. I heard what he was playing.

I completely understand what you are saying with that... however I am guilty of the other end of the coin as well. as a young PFC in Germany, I was one of the only soldiers going to nightschool. my bookshelf, that I had to get special permission to have, was populated with numerous historical and philisophical tracts. those titles got me a LOT of mileage when my area wasn't 100% during inspections.

BurBunny · 04-26-2009, 04:15 PM

I do enjoy looking at what others around are reading, and have started many a conversation based on it. Though I'd hazard a guess that more conversations per public outinghave been started because I was reading on a Kindle.

Maybe we need to print out and affix to the back of the Kindle or the case an image of the cover of the book we're reading (or want others to think we're reading)?

Steven Lyle Jordan · 04-26-2009, 04:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BurBunny

I do enjoy looking at what others around are reading, and have started many a conversation based on it. Though I'd hazard a guess that more conversations per public outinghave been started because I was reading on a Kindle.

There's still a curiosity factor about it: Although a lot of people have now heard about the Kindle, a great many still have not actually seen one, and the uniqueness of the e-ink screen never ceases to become an experience for those who see it for the first time. The Sony reader has the same effect, I've noticed.

In contrast, I read novels on my PDA, and nobody bats an eye...

Markbot, here's an idea: Show a girl your Kindle, let her get a good look at that screen, then as she curls up next to you, read her some Longfellow or Keats...

bhartman36 · 04-26-2009, 05:34 PM

I read the article with a mix of revulsion and extreme disappointment. I'm saddened that the NY Times would print such tripe.

The author comes off as someone much more accustomed to "Sex and the City" than anything by Proust. The superficiality of her analysis was almost impressive.

timezone · 04-26-2009, 06:46 PM

I thought it was an interesting read because for me it was about technology and how it changes us. While I totally am immersed in technology and a bit of the gadget guy, I can appreciate both sides of the coin. I do believe technology improves our lives but each turn of the screw is another step away from our connectedness with other people. IM, email and forums in one way can bring people from around the world together. While at the same time separate us from those across the street or in another office or cube in the work place. Of course the same can be said of the telephone or even snail mail. Technology masks who we are and that was the import of the article. Maybe a small thing to say I am now unable to measure a person by their bookcase or discover an author by noticing a book someone is holding. But, if taken together with all the other things we use to notice or do before computers, cell phones, etc, we might discover a big hole where once we use to define who we are as a society or people.

Does technology just change our point of view or does it chip away our humanity?

04-25-2009, 05:08 PM	#1
markbot Guru Posts: 612 Karma: 7511929 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: New York, NY Device: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2	Kindle hinders literary snobbism http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/fa...hf7PTWvOoFLDwA When I invite a girl over to my pad, the Kindle makes it more difficult to bed her....since I have fewer books on my shelf to impress her with. Last edited by markbot; 04-29-2009 at 10:13 AM.

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04-25-2009, 05:14 PM	#2
whitearrow Guru Posts: 808 Karma: 2260766 Join Date: Apr 2008 Device: Kindle Oasis 2	Yeah, I read this too. -2 dumb

04-25-2009, 05:54 PM	#3
sirbruce Provocateur Posts: 1,859 Karma: 505847 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Columbus, OH Device: Kindle Touch, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, iPhone 3GS	Ron Burgundy: I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal. Veronica Corningstone: Really. Ron Burgundy: People know me. Veronica Corningstone: Well, I'm very happy for you. Ron Burgundy: I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.

04-25-2009, 08:31 PM	#4
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 78,986 Karma: 144284074 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	If I like to read using my 505, then what does it matter that the content is not in pBook form? It's more important that I am enjoying what I am reading. Do I have to advertise to some strange lady what I am reading so she can have fantasies about me and that book? Nope, I can keep what I am reading private to just me if I so choose. And those of you that have erotic fantasies abou people with pBooks, go get help.

04-25-2009, 09:09 PM	#5
DixieGal Hi There! Posts: 7,473 Karma: 2930523 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Ft Lauderdale Device: iPad	Where do they keep digging up these clowns? That was one of the funnier things I've read lately, but not funny like Hal Spacejock. I have a few quotes that I would like to respond to: “It’s really expensive,” she said of the Kindle 2, which Amazon sells for $359. “If you’re going to pay that, you’re giving a statement to the world that you like to read — and you’re probably not using it to read a mass market paperback.” Really? Because I recently chucked a whole bookshelf of classics, you know, the books I studied for my degree in literature, and you know, I'll download them if I ever care to read them again. "The publishing world is all caught up in weighty questions about the Kindle and other such devices: Will they help or hurt book sales and authors’ advances? Cannibalize the industry? Galvanize it? " Need I say anything? And this came out yesterday - FRIDAY! "Michael Silverblatt, host of the weekly public radi o show “Bookworm,” uses the term “literary desire” to describe the attraction that comes with seeing a stranger reading your favorite book or author. “When I was a teenager waiting in line for a film showing at the Museum of Modern Art and someone was carrying a book I loved, I would start to have fantasies about being best friends or lovers with that person,” he said." Aw, Mikey, I'm embarrassed for you. Didja ever touch a real girl after all?

04-25-2009, 09:22 PM	#6
thibaulthalpern Evangelist Posts: 478 Karma: 451808 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: California, USA Device: my two eyes, KLiiK, Sony PRS-700	We're forgetting the materiality of the printed book. Sure, for many books the text is primarily it. But, for many other kinds of books, content is not just in the form of easily translatable form that can be represented in other medium. That's where the materiality comes in. The materiality of a book cannot be reproduced on a digital screen. We keep conflating information and materiality, as if one were the other necessarily. By we, I include internet pundits, experts, and scholars. We keep forgetting there is a materiality that cannot be reproduced and that materiality can matter--not in all cases but in many cases.

04-25-2009, 09:49 PM	#8
lilac_jive Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,870 Karma: 27376 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Device: PRS-505	Uhhh I buy mostly mass market paperbacks for my Sony...don't know what this chick is talking about. And I like that no one can see my sovers. Some of those romance covers are embarassing. Plus no one needs to know what I'm reading.

04-25-2009, 09:51 PM	#9
Gideon Wearer of Pants Posts: 1,050 Karma: 7634 Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Norman, OK Device: Amazon Kindle DX / iPhone	I dunno... I once talked to a girl in a bookstore about various translations of the Illiad... I was absolutely in love! I'm certainly guilty of checking out people's bookshelves.... But you really can't make much of it. I know some brilliant, educated people who have less than impressive libraries, and plenty of people with good libraries who are absolute morons. Great conversation starters, though...

04-26-2009, 04:15 PM	#12
BurBunny Zealot Posts: 110 Karma: 392 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle 2.0 In Hand	I do enjoy looking at what others around are reading, and have started many a conversation based on it. Though I'd hazard a guess that more conversations per public outinghave been started because I was reading on a Kindle. Maybe we need to print out and affix to the back of the Kindle or the case an image of the cover of the book we're reading (or want others to think we're reading)?

04-26-2009, 05:34 PM	#14
bhartman36 Wizard Posts: 1,323 Karma: 1515835 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: New Jersey, USA Device: Kobo Libra Colour, Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition (2021)	I read the article with a mix of revulsion and extreme disappointment. I'm saddened that the NY Times would print such tripe. The author comes off as someone much more accustomed to "Sex and the City" than anything by Proust. The superficiality of her analysis was almost impressive.

04-26-2009, 06:46 PM	#15
timezone Addict Posts: 244 Karma: 1232 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Boston, MA Device: Windows Phone7, Kindle Fire	I thought it was an interesting read because for me it was about technology and how it changes us. While I totally am immersed in technology and a bit of the gadget guy, I can appreciate both sides of the coin. I do believe technology improves our lives but each turn of the screw is another step away from our connectedness with other people. IM, email and forums in one way can bring people from around the world together. While at the same time separate us from those across the street or in another office or cube in the work place. Of course the same can be said of the telephone or even snail mail. Technology masks who we are and that was the import of the article. Maybe a small thing to say I am now unable to measure a person by their bookcase or discover an author by noticing a book someone is holding. But, if taken together with all the other things we use to notice or do before computers, cell phones, etc, we might discover a big hole where once we use to define who we are as a society or people. Does technology just change our point of view or does it chip away our humanity?

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