The Willful Death of a Luddite
As an avid reader, I’d kept a wary watch on the world of e-readers since the first practical edition of the Kindle came out. (I’m still at a loss for the use of the scroll bar on the side of the original device.) Like many readers, I was a little tentative about giving up my paper pages not so much because I enjoy the feel of a book in my hands, but primarily because my home library is tied directly to my ego, wh...
Facts, Errors, and the Kindle
From More Intelligent Life: Facts, Errors, and the Kindle. Nietzsche famously said that there are no such things as facts, only interpretations. Be that as it may, every writer knows that there are certainly such things as factual mistakes. Errors are common in all forms of media, but it is mistakes in the printed word that are perhaps the most pernicious. Once a "fact" has been pressed onto paper, it becomes a trus...
Cultural Snobbery
From Vanity Fair: James Wolcott on Cultural Snobbery. In New York City (can't speak for the other metro systems across this great land), every subway car is a rolling library, every ride an opportunity to spy on the reading tastes of fellow passengers and make snap judgments that probably wouldn't hold up in court. Single women in their 30s and 40s gripping a teenage-vampire tale or a Harry Potter-they seem to be ha...
Upgrade Me: Are We Getting Better, Or Just Newer?
A confession: a couple of Wednesdays ago, I brought my laptop to work with me for one purpose - to download the latest iPhone update. Apple issued an upgrade to its iPhone software that day, which added such long-awaited features as Copy, Cut and Paste, Spotlight search, multimedia messaging, and a plethora of other add-ons to the already excellent operating system. (Yes, this is going to be a nerdy article.) ...
To Kindle or Not to Kindle? That’s not really the question.
From Inside Higher Ed: The Reader. A willingness to incorporate the Kindle into my routines does not mean abandoning print, any more than giving up the habit of inscribing my name inside the cover of a book has made me any less bibliocentric. The patterns of engagement with text - the levels of concentration you bring to reading, the various degree of intensity with which you connect with a given work - change over t...
Is a literary revival on the way?
From the New York Times: Amazon to Sell E-Books for Apple Devices. "A couple months ago a lot of people thought Amazon was slavishly imitating the Apple model," said Bill Rosenblatt, president of the consulting business GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies. "It turns out they have a different model than Apple. They are smarter than everyone thought." The developments also suggest that, true to his word, Steven P. ...
