You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover
I'm an active Kindle user. Yes, I am.
The Kindle has thoroughly transformed my reading experience. The easy access, the portability, the built-in dictionary and the like, are all well known and much discussed. The ease and enhancements that it lends to my reading experience are sometimes hard to define, but definitely there, as those to whom I've lent my Kindle can testify.
That said, many arguments have been put forth that the Kindle is bad — it's destroying the publishing industry and the "art" of print, it puts people out of work, you can't share books, writers are under-compensated, blah, blah, blah. Although I've argued against those points many times, I don't intend to do so here.
No, what I want to share is an article I read in the Fashion and Style (note: not Books and Literature) section of the Times (online BTW) that takes a look at a new approach to dissing my beloved K. Specifically, Public Display of Literature — clearly displaying a book's title — which is possible with print books and not with e-books. That is, you can tell what I'm p-reading, but not what I'm e-reading. So PDL is a good thing. Evidently, people want to make a public statement about themselves by displaying what they're reading, or maybe they want to size you up by perusing the contents of your bookshelves.
The columnist makes plenty of interesting points, but I must say that I find the anonymity the Kindle provides just a little liberating. I read lots of different kinds of books, from trash to treasures, and I'm glad that I won't be judged by my book when it happens to be the former.
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