Violated by a Kindle
“I’m reading a new book I downloaded on my Kindle and I noticed an underlined passage. It is surely a mistake, I think. This is a new book. I don’t know about you, but I always hated underlined passages in used books…. And then I discovered that the horror doesn’t stop with the unwelcomed presence of another reader who’s defaced my new book. But it deepens with something called view popular highlights, which will tell you how many morons have underlined before so that not only you do not own the new book you paid for, the entire experience of reading is shattered by the presence of a mob that agitates inside your text like strangers in a train station.
“So now you can add to the ease of downloading an e-book the end of the illusion that it is your book. The end of the privileged relation between yourself and your book. And a certainty that you’ve been had. Not only is the e-book not yours to be with alone, it is shared at Amazon which shares with you what it knows about you reading and the readings of others. And lets you know that you are what you underline, which is only a number in a mass of popular views…. Conformism does come of age in the most private of peaceful activities–reading a book, one of the last solitary pleasures in a world full of prompts to behave. My Kindle, sugar-coated cyanide.”
–Andrei Codrescu on NPR’s All Things Considered
Doug Millison
March 10, 2011 @ 8:45 am
For me, books have always been social. Even in the most secluded, private moments when I enjoy a book, I know I’m sharing the book with its other readers. Part of the pleasure that I find in reading is learning how other readers have responded to the book.
admin
March 10, 2011 @ 9:00 am
We agree with you, Doug. Though, for me (Arielle), I don’t like being distracted when I read because I feel compelled to stop reading and find out the source of the distraction (footnotes are the worst!). That what I don’t like about this.
Scott
March 10, 2011 @ 9:13 am
I like it. I’m a people person. I hope they come up with a way to choose not to have that for
people that feel the same as you.
Emme
March 10, 2011 @ 10:38 am
Um…. you can turn that feature off.
admin
March 29, 2011 @ 3:10 pm
Clearly, Andre was unaware of this!!!
Don
March 10, 2011 @ 3:05 pm
If it is your preference to continue to hate the Kindle, stop here. If you wish to simply turn off the feature you have found so annoying: press the Home button, then press the Menu button, scroll down to Settings, select settings, move forward one page and scroll to Popular Highlights, click on “turn off” and your books will no longer be violated by unwelcomed morons.
admin
March 29, 2011 @ 3:09 pm
We don’t hate the Kindle at all! This was an essay from NPR and we like to post different opinions of what’s going on in the book world.
Peter Reed Hill
March 18, 2011 @ 12:02 am
Dear David:
I knew you at Reed but I knew Craig much better. I helped him with his humanities papers his freshman year. My oldest son Ian is a freshman at UCal Berkeley who is still planning on majoring in engineering. I seem to recall that Craig was a professor at Cal at one point but my uncle, a retired graduate school and department head, could not locate him so perhaps I am mistaken.
Please let me know how to get a hold of Craig. I am interested to know what he has done with his fabulous scientific mind. Oh, and by the way, I want to publish a book about my court victories (and I perhaps may even include the few defeats…) on behalf of immigrants in my 22 year career as an immigraiton and criminal lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia. I will buy your book on Amazon shortly to help me find a publisher.
I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors!
Peter Reed Hill, Class of 1979