The New Yorker book blog pretends it’s 2008, trashes ebooks

It makes me cringe when The New Yorker stumbles, even if the accident happens on one of its blog divisions and not within an actual issue. Maybe I’m hero-worshipping too much, but I like to think the writers and editors there hold themselves, and their readers, to a more stringent standard of reasoning, which means: no stupid statements in print, and no us-vs-them journalism.

This anti-Kindle blog post from earlier today commits both sins:

“Am I supposed to understand the desire of the Kindle to be held and read? Or the humans who prefer them to books? When I read a book all the way through to the end, I want the evidence stuffed and mounted on my bookshelf. My suspicion is that people who prefer e-readers use them primarily to read Harlan Coben, and are happy to be able to delete the physical evidence.”

I’d say the post is about 80% tongue-in-cheek, and after that opening the writer goes on to discuss the current spate of popular technology books. But the underlying tone–which is against not just the Kindle but the entire concept of ebooks–remains as reactionary and closed-minded as any screed you could find in newspapers, magazines and websites all over the U.S. from 2008 to 2010. Jeez, even David Pogue, who is pretty much a stand-in for the mainstream when it comes to consumer technology, has stopped trashing them!

And although I shouldn’t have to, just to be clear I want to state that I see no problem with buying print editions instead of, or even in addition to, digital editions. That “you’re either with me or against me” mentality is so damned dispiriting when you’re a book-loving geek.

“What Kindle Wants” [The New Yorker]

(Photo: IrishFireside)