To add variety to Valu-Rite Vodka and hobo-killin’, Ace embraces the MfBJN lifestyle:
Allah, the technojunkie, is swooning over the new improved Kindle. I’m not, and I don’t think most will.
For one thing it costs $360. Quite an investment.
For another thing, books are not precisely difficult to carry around, especially on the places where you’d read a book outside your home — subway, airport, Starbucks, park. The Kindle is a bit thinner and lighter, but who’s sweating the weight of a book?
For yet another thing, books are intrinsically pleasurable as objects. People like books — the feel of paper, the smell of them. Kindle is not going to replace that attractiveness anytime soon.
But here’s the big reason Kindle will never catch on, as a friend explained to me:
“How do you know what to read?”
By which he meant — without the pleasant ritual of going to a book-store, browsing the stacks, picking up a book and reading its back cover and first few pages — how the hell do you know what you want to read in the first place?
You know, modern Americans read 36 books a year and buy 84 books. Because I bring the average up that much, baby! (see also this and this.)
