Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The E-reader is Coming! The E-reader is Coming!



The e-reader race is on!

Although not the first, Kindle is definitely the most popular e-reader, and sales of e-versions of books at Amazon were greater than physical books this past holiday season. Stories have been dedicated to the popularity of e-readers, the growth of e-readers, and changes in e-readers. It seems that suddenly people are reading again. So as some cringe over the loss of physical books, it is important to remember what books do and that is to provide information, to tell stories, to make us think.

Why have we fetishized the physical book? I think this issue is akin to Linus’s blanket—it’s something we are comfortable with. After all, a lot of people are comfortable with gas guzzling SUVs, but it’s time to get over it. No one is saying, let’s abandon books. What we need to say is, here’s a new way to interact with a text, how do we do it?


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