Amazon Kindle = Elitist?

In a previous post, I extolled the virtues of Amazon's Kindle and how it will affect the way people read, both positively and negatively. As a technophile, I generally find myself on the side of technology, and in the case of books and the book industry, I definitely do think that eBooks and the like are the way of the future if the book is expected to survive. Like other forms of media -- music, movies, video games -- the printed word has to change or die. Just look at the newspaper and magazine industries. For better or for worse, paper has to become digital.

Now, I'm not necessarily saying there has to be a wholesale change in the way books are distributed and consumed. Like all things, the transition should be slow and natural, and I don't truly believe that the physical format will ever die out; there will always be a market for physical books. Having spent the better part of my adolescence devouring books from the library, I have countless memories of reading anything under the sun, new and old, large and small, holding books smelling of paper and age, all of which make up my childhood. And frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way. Given the choice and the means, I'd buy books in paper form while trying out the Kindle. But those are my experiences and choices, shaped by my childhood. Who says that children are experiencing literature in the same way today; who are we to say: these are our memories and experiences, you must acquire them, cherish them, and love them too?

Also interesting are writer Sherman Alexie's comments a few weeks ago at New York's BookExpo in relation to the Kindle, specifically calling it elitist. He's right. Technology, especially high technology, is not readily accessible to the poor. My feelings on this matter are mixed; I definitely do agree with Sherman Alexie's charge of technological elitism. But to speak to that, let's face it, literature as us MFAers know it is consumed primarily by the well off, the academic elite, the upper and middle class. Outside of the handful of writers -- the Dan Browns, the Stephen Kings of the world -- books are already restricted by a form of social elitism.

On the other hand, it's important to know that no one reads the way they used to, ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Attention is being siphoned by other media such as video games, movie, and television. If books wish to remain competitive as a form of entertainment, and even more importantly, if it wishes to widen its audience so that it isn't just a medium and art form for the elite, it must change. Whether this is in the form of Kindle books or PDF files easily accessed online by all, I don't know. At any rate, Sherman Alexie is interviewed in the following link, and clarifies his stance of the "elitist Kindle." It's a great read, and encapsulates a lot of important points and ideas on the complex subject. Find it here.

Goodreads

My previous post got me thinking: all my "What I'm Reading" list really is, is but a stripped down version of what Goodreads offers. What's Goodreads? I'm glad you asked. It's yet another social networking site, but with a literary twist. It focuses on books and the people who read books. Users maintain and update lists of books they've read, want to read ("to-read"), are currently reading, and any other kind of custom list. They can also rate books, write reviews, and comment on other people's book selections, reviews, comments, etc. Personally, I find it's an indispensable resource for keeping track of what I've read, when I've read it, and what I plan to read sometime down the line. On top of that, it's also a great way to generate book discussions with friends (the few that I have who read!).

Want to be my friend on Goodreads? Click here. Happy reading!

Work, etc.

How busy has your summer been so far? If it has been anything like mine, then the answer would probably be "very." Yet as early as a month ago, I was patting myself on the back for a job well done applying to all those schools last fall, thinking I'd take it easy over the summer, maybe read a few books, write a lot, and relax. Nope.

Not if you want to hit the ground running in your first year of grad school. Relatively speaking, of course. All the preparation in the world can't replace actually going to grad school. But you can do is prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. And preparing for the worst, I've found, is a lot of work. This summer, I have to:

• Move from one city to another.
  
• Write -- New, sparkly stories that will validate my program's confidence in me!
• Read -- Read what, you may ask? A ton of stuff:
• My professors' works.
• Works for my upcoming craft class.
• Textbooks for my TAship.
• Anything else that I would normally read for fun. A low priority, considering what's listed above.
• Prepare for my TAship.

The above list may look small. Innocent, even. But it is by no means easy. For example, for the last bullet point, I emailed the TA Director a few days ago, asking for some guidance on teaching preparation for the fall, and happily, he provided me with a great deal of information, of which were: two textbooks (Did you know that you can get those suckers for free if you contact the publishers and let them know you're teaching that class? Free stuff rules.), a syllabus, and some journal readings on topics that I'll be expected to teach. The reading, while not exactly tiny stuff, isn't what scares me about teaching, though. I don't mind work. It's the act of teaching, the whole getting up in front of twenty or so students, and talking for fifty minutes, three times a week. How in the heck do you prepare for that? The syllabus provides some structure in this respect. As will the week-long orientation for all teaching assistants before school starts. In fact, I'm fairly confident in the University's ability to prepare their students to teach come fall, yet the simple fact is that all the preparation in the world cannot replace the knowledge gained from actually experiencing something. I'm not scared of the prospect of teaching (okay, maybe I am just a little; I despise public speaking), I'm really more looking forward to the day where I don't have to consciously worry about it.

Amazon's Kindle

Check it, the new Kindle DX. Discalimer: I do not represent or am affiliated with Amazon in any way. I am, however, a humongous technophile and a reading geek. So, you can imagine how great this new Kindle is to me. In addition to holding thousands of pounds of books in a light, easy to carry little tablet, the thing also supports magazines, textbooks, and newspapers, all downloadable at your fingertips. Hooray for an alternative financial model for the dying newspapers! It also supports PDF files, and has nifty graphics in black and white. No color, but I imagine that it'll be something that Amazon will be unveiling sometime down the road.

Now. Let's be honest. At $489, this item is not cheap. And if you want your New York Times or subscription to The Atlantic or any books at all, those are all additional fees on top of the extraordinarily expensive Kindle. Older versions will cost you about $350, which is (relatively) reasonable, but honestly, what writer (unless you're Stephen King) has that kind of change to spare? What's intriguing about the whole concept of downloadable content and media (in book and text form) is the way it could potentially change the way books are consumed and read. An electronic version of a book, one that can be bought and downloaded in the matter of minutes, anywhere, very much supports the kind of impulsive and "on-demand" buying pattern that the Internet currently feeds for things like video games and software. Want it? Have a credit card? It's yours, right now. A good thing for books, I think, if they are advertised and supported properly. At the same time, the electronic format (and the linked Wall Street Journal article above touches on this) also promotes a different type of reading pattern that a good old fashioned piece of paper does not. It makes reading more fractious, promotes skimming rather than an attention to detail. You can see it in the way media online is currently consumed. When was the last time you've read something you were only half interested in line by line in an online article? My reading habits and strategies massively shift depending on what medium it is in. Online, I tend to read more quickly, skimming articles, websites, and pages for key phrases and nuggets. When I find something that interests me, or that requires deeper attention, do I finally stop and give a deeper reading. Otherwise, if it doesn't attract me, I pass it over, and ignore it. This, I imagine, will be exacerbated with cheap, on-demand e-media. If a book -- bought relatively cheaply -- is easily gotten, easily downloaded, and easily loaded, how much attention will it be given if it doesn't grab a reader from the first page? The first paragraph? Easily gotten, also easily abandoned and forgotten. I've always considered buying books from the store as entering into a kind of agreement: no matter how long it takes me to get to the book or how long to read, I'll eventually finish it. More than it being 10-15 dollars in price, a physical book is a kind of reminder, sitting on your desk or bookshelf or whatever, until you go and read it, where it then transforms into a different kind of reminder, a reminder of how good (or bad) your memories of that book were everytime you see it. An e-book cannot do this. An e-book, if you don't like it, can be closed and filed away electronically. It disappears, and there is no physical reminder of your book, unless you actively go and look for it again in the file menu.

Some interesting things to think about -- both bad and good. Even though I believe the physical format will never go out of style, I do think the electronic format is the future. Just look at the music industry.

The Road

Just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I realize there's nothing I can really say about this book that hasn't already been said, except that you really need to read it if you haven't already. As a piece of art and literature, it's pretty freaking brilliant, but more than that, it manages to be incredibly accessible while maintaining a level of prose that is still fairly difficult in terms of pure craft. Probably the reason why (well, Oprah certainly helps too) it has been so successful both critically and comercially. Oh, and it's being made into a movie as well, so you'll definitely want to catch the book before it comes out to avoid being the person who ends up reading the book when the movie's all popular. Not a mistake I'll make twice after Fight Club.