In one of the more enjoyable writing experiences I've had of late, I've got the cover in this month's Columbia Journalism Review recounting my month with the Amazon Kindle and what it suggests about the future of reading:I’m not sure exactly what I expected from my month with the Kindle. Maybe for some inquisitive older gentleman, possibly wearing wire glasses and a tweed blazer, to sidle up and say, “Excuse me, I hate to bother you while you’re reading, but do you really think that can replace the book?” Or possibly for a librarian to berate me. In any case, it didn’t happen. In fact, nobody noticed at all. Though reading the Kindle felt like a courageous betrayal of every word written since the moment papyrus gave way to paper, it turns out that looking at words on tiny screens in public places is far too common to attract attention. Indeed, the only person who demonstrated a heightened awareness of nearby reading habits was me. Suddenly everyone seemed to be staring at a laptop or scrolling through a BlackBerry or searching for songs on an iPod or texting on a flip phone. The Kindle is far less the start of a revolution than the codification of one. It’s a declaration of war long after most of the contested lands have been conquered.[...]Let me be clear: though the Kindle has some advantages over traditional books, for the moment, I’d stick with the low-tech option. The problem is that the Kindle tries to compete too directly with paper. It attempts to electronically mimic the experience of reading a book. But the book is very, very good at providing the experience of reading a book. In this way, the Kindle occasionally comes off as if Ford, failing to make the conceptual leap to the car, had instead built a motorized horse. Sure, there would be some advantages: the robo-steed would never grow tired, and could be outfitted with more plush seating. But horses are pretty good at being horses. And books, like horses, have evolved to maximize their advantages.The true promise of the Kindle, and its inevitable descendants, is in creating a product that goes where the book cannot. Printed text is fundamentally limited. Once on the page, nothing more can be done with it. With digital text, everything is a draft, to be edited, altered, broadened, remixed, and redirected. As better conveyors of electronic text are developed, the big question is how content itself will change to take advantage of the new opportunities.The rest of the piece is an exploration of the possibilities of digital text. But I should add a caveat: The Kindle has one main advantage over the book in that it is very light. Much lighter than a couple hundred books. So if you're someone who's constantly lugging around 30 pounds of reading material, the Kindle may indeed change your life, and save your posture. Photo used under a Creative Commons license from John Pastor.
