First, I know you were all totally fooled by yesterday's post, which is not true. Too subtle? Ah well. This much is true though, the Hollywood Reporter is the worst.
Not quite the worst, but still a little deplorable: The book cover picked for the photo illustrating the recent New York Times story, "In E-Book Era, You Can't Even Judge a Cover," sent to me by regular commenter Elizabeth who knows how I enjoy dissecting these stories. I appreciate that it's an out-of-print edition to demonstrate maximum BHDery but something about the empty underwear really creeps me out. Also, I own this book, and I haven't read it, but my copy also has a bowler hat on it -- anyone want to explain that reference to me?
The Times does this story every year -- last year it was called "With a Kindle, Can You Tell It's Proust?" and I wrote about it then. Last year it was more about pretentiousness, and this year it's more about design, but the impulse is the same.
I have seen a slight rise in Kindle and e-Reader sightings on my subway trips over the past year, but I don't think the book is really in danger. (Surprise!) Far more people use their smartphones instead of reading than read e-books over the classic model, but that's not much of a trend story. And unless people who get Kindles are rushing out to also get rid of their paper-based libraries, I don't see how paper books will just magically vanish one day. Besides, there are other ways to judge whether people are reading or well-read than just peeking at what they're reading. Or so I hear.
Also, it strikes me how much of a public-transit-using city-dweller's concern this is. They might still be carrying a book, but most Americans are driving to work and (one would hope) not reading anything at the same time -- and when the weather gets warm, they're in their backyards reading, not Bryant Park.
3 comments:
The bowler hat becomes an important prop (which later evolves into a symbol) for one of the female characters.
I just saw my second Kindle yesterday. My guess is that the Kindle-owning crowd and the public-transit-taking crowd overlap less in Baltimore than they do in New York. (The first Kindle I saw was on a transatlantic flight.)
Bowler hats have an odd AC/DC power to them. Like Kundera,Bob Fosse understood this, and I always wondered who got the idea from whom. As for Kindle and Nook owners, I suspect most of them are the literary equivalent of the people who, nights before its release, bundle up outside electronics stores for Steve Jobs' latest toy. I say "equivalent," because Jobs is on record as having said, "Nobody reads now."
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