Seattle alterna-weekly's book editor chooses Sony

[thename]

Seattle's local alterna-weekly, The Stranger's book editor, Paul Constant, recently wrote up his purchase of a Sony PRS. He touches on a variety of things near and dear to hearts. Worth a quick read (and a forward to Sony haters!).

[SeaBookGuy]

I see very few Kindles around town (site of Amazon World Headquarters!) - Nook, Sony and phones, yes (I haven't noticed any Kobos yet).

[Penforhire]

Decent article but I disagree with his take on e-books in general. To me they ARE just like physical books. When I'm reading a good story the pages or device fall away completely and I am completely inside the tale. Sad, if he hasn't achieved that type of e-reading himself.

[thename]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

I see very few Kindles around town (site of Amazon World Headquarters!) - Nook, Sony and phones, yes (I haven't noticed any Kobos yet).

I will admit that my co-busing commuters seem to overwhelmingly favor Kindles or iPads for their mobile reading. I can think of 1 Sony and 1 nook I've seen off the top of my head.

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Decent article but I disagree with his take on e-books in general. To me they ARE just like physical books. When I'm reading a good story the pages or device fall away completely and I am completely inside the tale. Sad, if he hasn't achieved that type of e-reading himself.

I think this is an interesting interpretation; I read that aspect of the piece as taking to task the Gizmodo-ish reviews of various readers focusing on their technical specs and what wasn't included ("what? No RFID reader?!"). Which, as you suggest, is totally missing the point. These are devices on which to read; should we really judge what people choose to read on them?

[Penforhire]

I took exception to this excerpt, especially the last line --

"But an e-book is a file, and as computer users, we have very different relationships with files than we do with books. Files are for use: We fiddle with their preferences, we delete them, we rename them and copy them and stretch them, sometimes to the point of crashing. It's impossible to ascribe the same childish sense of awe and authority to a file as we do to books.

Files are for arguments. Even on a subconscious level, this affects the reading process. And not necessarily in a bad way. Files are more conversational than books; they knock the content down a notch or two in esteem. Any schmuck can make a file, but self-*publishing even one physical book requires an outlay of money to hire a craftsman's expertise.

Put simply: Reading an e-book is more like reading a magazine article than reading a physical book. "

[thename]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

"Put simply: Reading an e-book is more like reading a magazine article than reading a physical book. "

But you'll find that besides those of us early adopting, e-book lovers most people seem to fall into this mindest. Hence the apparent success of all the various shorter-form marketing plans e.g., Kindle Singles, Ativist, etc.

It seems to me people are of Mr. Constant's mindset: books are physical, bound paper commodities while other things that aren't printed and bound are something ... else. I think many like to blame the platform (who hasn't heard, many a time, that "it's not reading if it's on a screen") and make a distinction between types of reading ("I don't read the paper, I read NYTimes.com"). Whether we agree with it or not it seems more and more prevalent.

To my mind, I don't care what the dude's reading on his Sony. I'm just glad people are buying them and hope Sony will keep producing them.