Technology

As a Kindle heavy user, I was intrigued by several recent news about e-reader. The first one was a New York Time article deconstructing the essence of e-reader. The author argued that the reading experience of e-reader, unlike most people thought, was actually a linear one, similar to the ancient book format: scroll. It’s the codex, the book format we’re familiar with today, that provided us a non-linear reading experience. That’s why we massively use the terms tablet and scroll in e-reader. That’s why it’s such an awkward experiences to randomly jump from page to page in e-reader, because it’s meant to be linear.

(Image from mtsofan)

From this standpoint, physical books may not become extinct animals. No matter how convenient Kindle is — long battery, portability, dictionary, note taking — I would still miss the feeling of flipping book pages across fingers. Whenever I feel impatient to read chapter by chapter, I would flip to the last few pages to have a few glimpse of the ending, just like Bill Crystal would do in When Harry met Sally. Sometimes, the flexibility of cross-checking pages could even enhance understanding and bring pleasure.

Furthermore, another article in NPR pointed out that e-reader actually dissolves the bond between readers and books. We hardly feel excited when downloading e-books; it’s totally different from the old time when we receive a book, we would touch, smell, hold it. In a way, we’ve lost the sense of ownership of the books. And this further flattens the whole book purchasing experiences, because there is no difference between buying a 300-pages classical literature and a 80-pages guide for dummies. Consider book consumption is, or was, such an important way to identify our taste, the instant gratification promised by e-books is truly pale, weak, and incomplete.

Noticing Apple has launched a short-formed book service Quick Read, similar to Kindle Singles, I further believe the incompletion of e-reading experience would be deteriorated. When a book can be purchased by individual chapter, how would this influence the way author and publisher choosing topics? And, should we still call individual chapter a “book”? The traditional definition of book is facing challenges, but I believe it will still keep its presences in the sideway. The concept of “author as a curator” would become a new wave. Just like more and more music companies re-encourage the value of album, we can imagine someday, when Kindle Singles and Quick Read become mainstream, we will hear another voice to recall the uniqueness of reading a whole book.