I intended to post most of this over the weekend but, proving once again that sometimes procrastination is for the best, the first two items are from today.
- Amazon announces its long-awaited Kindle, “a wireless, portable reading device with instant access to more than 90,000 books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers.” List price? $399.00. Me? I’ll stick with paper. UPDATE: Check out Ed’s reasons he’s sticking with books.
- The NEA’s new report on reading trends isn’t surprising: reading is declining and the younger you are, the less likely you are to read books. The latter is discouraging as the “number of books in a home is a significant predictor of academic achievement” just as reading for pleasure “correlates strongly with academic achievement.”
- In light of that report maybe the television writer’s strike is good news. A Pepperdine University survey showed that “[w]hen asked about the prospect of reruns replacing new shows, 42% of the respondents said they would read more.”
- So it appears death is good for a writer’s sales, particularly Kurt Vonnegut. But I have the same question about the story as Sam Houston. If “Vonnegut was the American Mark Twain,” what country is Mark Twain the Mark Twain of?
- There was a slight CIA theme in the National Book Awards last week. One of the main characters in fiction winner Tree of Smoke is a CIA officer while the nonfiction winner was Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.
Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.
Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
[...] A lot of stuff has been said recently about the Kindle, Amazon’s paperless literature machine. Is it worthwhile? Ed Champion has 10 reasons why it’s not. Is it practical? Condalmo says, at $400, not really – especially since the technology isn’t even complete. Is it even desirable? Not to Tim – he’s sticking with paper. [...]