There is an article on NYTimes about how the age of Kindle or e-bookreaders is going to impact the old-fashioned books and the culture associated with book reading. Much of the article is devoted to the physical nature of books and the signals it sends to people around the person reading the book. For example if I have all my library in Kindle how would others be able to see what I have been reading and infer what sort of a person I am. In another case while traveling seeing another person carry your favorite book makes instant connections.

While I won’t miss these things about books as physical objects. What I would definitely miss is the impact books have when one is growing up with a lot of books around. Some of the earlier books I read were not recommended to me by any one. I happen to read them as they belonged to my elders and were readily available in the house. As a kid when you have spare time you just pick what is around and read it. With ebook readers it is going to be tough. Another thing that concerns me about ebook readers how it is going to impact libraries. I hope I would still be able to borrow books from library the way I do today. May be even better that I won’t have to go to library physically.

As far as the touting the books you are reading in front of your network – it has already been taken care by the “new media”. See my books section. There are applications like livingsocial, weread on facebook. There is even shelfari.com So nothing to complain over there.

Image Courtesy : Flickr Cheneworth
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