All this Kindle talk reminded me of the story I read in Sunday’s New York Times, Snooping in the Age of E-book. The author laments that when you go to someone’s house, you can no longer judge them based on what books are on their bookshelf.
My heart sank. I suddenly felt trapped with an obsolete skill, like being a virtuoso manuscript illuminator in the era of Gutenberg. Even worse, I was facing an alarming predicament. How do I nose around friends’ houses when their bookshelves are freeze-dried in 2007. How do I snoop in the age of e-book?
With e-readers hiding people’s reading habits, how can we relate as fellow readers? Find affinity with a fellow Jane Austen lover? Condemn them for their poor author choices? Discover a new aspect of a friend’s personality or a esoteric interest? We are doomed.
White People’s Problems.
I loved your work in the X-Files
On the flip side, it’s more likely someone would download a book with the intention of actually reading it, as apposed to simply displaying it.
There will be an app for that: displaying a resident’s library on a wall – or TV!
Social media. I’ll bet Facebook is working out a deal with Amazon right now to post to all 4,000 “friends” every time you buy a book, whether it’s intellectual or low-grade soft porn. Google+ is probably coming up with something a touch classier – a digital library with bookends, each one visible to your friends based on which circle they’re in.
You mean I will have to judge a person BY FUCKING TALKING TO THEM?!?!? OMFG!!!!! How in the hell am I supposed to ask insightful questions to learn about the people I associate with now?!?!?
you might…I don’t know…fucking talk to them.
give it a try, seattle. seriously. it won’t hurt! it’ll be fun! i promise!
I’d just be happy if there was an easy way to view the titles of books and music that are currently being consumed by fellow bus riders. Either on a screen up front that all could see and/or within an app on my device.
It would be opt-in and only titles would be listed, not names of people. This probably already exists, although I’ve been asking for such a system for years.
In the past you could say something direct to a fellow reader on the bus (“Hey, I read that last year. Looks like you just got through part x, how did you like it?”) but since Kindle reveals nothing (unless you closely peer at their screen) you can only say vague things like “Whatcha reading?”
aw, @6 beat me while I was logging in. I will take my sarcastic toys and go home now in shame.
(back to my city, where people actually do talk to each other. It’s lovely.)
@6- Bookshelves reveal things that people won’t say out loud.
Get their password (hack, snoop,socially-engineer, or guess) and log into their account.
Will also give you bonus info, and multiplier since they probably use the same password everywhere.
@8 I often want to ask people if they like what they’re reading, but they’re reading, and I don’t want to interrupt them.
“Just talk to them” is to extroverts as “rational actor” is to economists as “just get a job” is to ignorant-ass WASPs. It ain’t that simple.
Has everyone thrown out all their books? Who wants to talk to people like that anyway?
I heart Goodreads dot com.
What’s this “talk” several of you mention? This is a foreign concept here …. at least since I returned it has been. They’re right, talk, people use to do this more than compare libraries. So many of you in the bars anyway, what are you doing there, just drinking now?
@11 You mean thrown out their paper books, right?. Because ebooks are still books. Just because you don’t read on paper doesn’t mean you don’t read. Hell, probably read even more now that I’ve been digital-only for ~2 years.
And who wants people nosing about their book collection? Snoopy McSnooperson, go mind your own business.
Umm… medicine cabinet?
Only a Seattle blog would people find a defense of passive agressive behavior. It’s so very Northwest!
@13 – dead on – well said!
@19 – irony alert!
@Gillian Anderson – I totally expected this post to be about corporate snooping on our e-book choices in order to devise more insidious ways to target advertising… How naive of me.
Ironic, since that John Waters quote is quietly making its way as a meme around FB (more irony!). “If you go to somebody’s house and they don’t have any books, don’t fuck them!”
Admitting you judge people by snooping around their bookshelves is admitting that you make your reading choices based on how they’ll look on your bookshelf.
@19: I love judging people by their bookshelves.
@22: Indirectly. It just means I read less fluff, and/or can better defend it 🙂
Really though, it’s fun to discover new reads, especially when going to a house party. I don’t want to spend more time on GoodReads than reading.