Barthes is Difficult

Hey Digitalers,

I'm on the third page of the Roland Barthes article, "From Work to Text," and am finding it difficult to read. At first I thought the "text" was some sort of abstract category from which the physical "thingness" of a book was separated, but as the article went on, I started to get the impression that there was some hierarchy going on--are all things written works, but not all works texts? I am only saying this (a) to ask if anyone else does have an idea of what the text says so that he/she may explain to me, and to put it out there that I'm having trouble with this work.

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?