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Feltre 2009-2010 Book Discussions
- September 14, Dorothy Sayers, The Nine Tailors
- October 12, Thornton Wilder, Heaven's My Destination
- November 9, Katherine Anne Porter, Ship of Fools
- January 11, John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
- February 8, Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
- March 8, Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
- April 12, Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife
- May 10, J.R.R Tolkien, The Hobbitt
- June 14, Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
- July 12, Nevil Shute, On the Beach
Hi Feltre Readers,
ReplyDeleteI'd like your feedback on this issue: is Kindle (the electronic book-reading device) the exciting new product that will single handedly save authors and books from extinction? Or, is it evil incarnate, stealing money from authors, words from editors, and books from libraries? What pluses and minuses do you see for authors and readers in this new technology?
Are any of you reading a Feltre book selection electronically?
Read you soon,
Kathleen
I love the question because I recently had a student in a public speaking class argue the wonders of Kindle, and it caused quite a stir among the other students in the class-- a complete divide. Who would think that people can still be moved by such a topic (thank heavens!).
ReplyDeleteThe student's presentation included the fact that the head of a large company (it's all diabolical, right?) claimed that within a very short time ANYTHING in the world that exists in print will be downloadable within 90 seconds on Kindle.
A long conversation ensued about who has the rights to various writings or kinds of writing, what are the power implications of a company possessing all that knowledge, how would it affect the way things are written. But what I found interesting was that the discussion began to evolve into something more emotional(?). People started to talk about the "feel" of holding a book, the "sense" of where the reader is based on the pages on one side of the hand versus the other, what it means to have a particular book as a "companion".
This "emotional" focus dominated the sentiment of the discussion. But no one could deny the practical value of such vast access to (hopefully) great works, not to mention the environmental savings.
So, as a group we concluded that in the future people will likely have a Kindle on the bookshelf as something of a very large reference library, but they will also continue to buy and collect the books they love.
(LL)
I think the Kindle is an awesome idea, though I still like the physical book in my hands. Where Kindle falls short, however, is in handling PDFs. I'm a grad student, and I would love to be able to read PDFs (image scans) of articles and make comments and take notes on the Kindle. The new large-format version allows you to read but not comment. What's the use of that? It's a huge market that Amazon is overlooking. I'm hoping they'll address that in their next release.
ReplyDeleteLarry, some of our friends had that same reaction - the "feel" of the book was important, and many of their arguments were emotional in tone. People enjoy the physicality (if that is possible!) of reading, as well as the mental workout.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I suspect that the "feel" of reading a book will go the way of steering horse carriages and non-power-assisted steering in cars - remembered fondly by a few, but irrelevant (and unexperienced) to most. Perhaps physical books will be connoisseur items, like cut glass punch bowls or hand-pieced quilts. Their beauty and craftsmanship are obvious, but irrelevant to their purpose.
As to the power of those companies who would "own" the works. Don't publishing houses have that power, now? In the Kindle world, authors could potentially eliminate the middlemen who now control distribution, and get paid directly from readers. The key, I believe, is not to make content "free" nor too low in price. Making information free would really be a threat to writers. (There was a great article about that in a recent New Yorker - if anyone is interested, I'll post a link to it.)
I agree with Pat, too, the functionality should improve. I think Amazon will (or Amazon's competitors) find a way to allow users to take notes in the documents.
One of the best features of Kindle that I've heard of its ability to "read" you a story, even translating that story from another language into English. That too, needs some kinks worked out, but, wow, I'd really enjoy that.