MarkThink

My Anti-Kindle 2.0 Blog Post

The Kindle 2.0 hoopla is waning slightly -- despite Jeff Bezos interview with John Stewart on The Daily Show, wow, they do want to look smart -- and I am not going to disagree with the progress the Kindle has made for readers. Anything that gets people to read is a good thing and the Kindle is great for the voracious readers who consume books.

I've actually been wondering about a world where paper is a rare and expensive commodity. OK, probably not paper; it's way to cheap to produce with products other than old growth trees. But I do think there will always be a world for high end, beautifully created books with limited print runs and a clear audience. Anyone who has owned an antiquarian book knows that they are portable, personal, emotional art.

Take a minute to enjoy The Book Cover Archive. It's a great design inspiration and a bit of fun for book lovers.  And the range of creativity of these books shows that someone will always be creating books for a reader somewhere, even if the publishing industry is transformed during the process.

Thanks, Updike

A sad-hearted thank you to John Updike (bio on poetryfoundation.org). Rabbit Run made me   want to read more fervently, write more poetically, and think more deeply. His beautiful descriptions of an everyday life made me notice the details that I assumed were part of life.

I still find myself recalling the description of the light as Rabbit leaves work in first chapter of Rabbit, Run.

[ Update to come. I had hoped to update the post last night with the excerpt from Rabbit, Run. Sadly I realized I've lost my copy (or, more likely, returned it to my parents or sold it) of Run.]

Photo courtesy of Alfred A. Knopf via VOA.