Timothy Egan of the New York Times tackles the statement Steve Jobs made last month about the decline of reading. I covered Jobs’ quote here, and a lively debate ensued in the comments. It’s been our most popular post by far, probably because what El Jobso said is pretty controversial.
You should definitely read his whole piece, but here are some of Egan’s money quotes:
Reading is something else, an engagement of the imagination with life experience. It’s fad-resistant, precisely because human beings are hard-wired for story, and intrinsically curious. Reading is not about product.
Next year, business may be down, and several publishers may merge, and certainly more of the poor, beloved independent bookstores will cling to life support. Steve Jobs will stroll into a room filled with breathless acolytes and pull a must-have trick from his bag. We’ll oohh and ahhhh about it, then go back to lives where a good book still holds more power than anything with a screen. Power to transport the reader to another world. Power to get inside somebody’s else mind, to live their story, to be moved.
Last year, a survey for the Associated Press found that a much smaller number — 27 percent — had not read a book lately, which means nearly three-in-four have read a book. [...] The more compelling statistic was rarely mentioned in news accounts of the A.P. story: the survey found that another 27 percent of Americans had read 15 or more books a year. That report documents a national celebration.
So a while back we had a rousing discussion about the future of the book. Spawned by Steve Jobs’ comment that books (and technologies like the Kindle) are increasingly irrelevant since, he claims, “people don’t read anymore.” Well, an offshoot and related issue is: what use do we have for brick-and-mortar bookstores? I’m intrigued by this post from Ezra Klein, and I think I sympathize.
“I love bookstores, and spend a significant fraction of my time in them. When I go to Politics and Prose, I purchase books I don’t need, partially out of a desire to simply donate to the store’s continued operation. I keep trying to figure out a reason I believe bookstores will survive into the future, but it seems pretty clear that books will eventually be as mercilessly digitized as music, and most bookstores will close, just as most CD stores were shuttered long ago.”
I too love bookstores and, while I’m loathe to browse a clothing store or local mall, can spend hours looking around a good bookstore. But, inevitably, my frugality takes hold and unless I’m desperate for a new novel I’ll take mental note of a few titles that look interesting (after checking out a chapter or two in the store)…and then order them online from home, saving money and often finding a used copy. Online purveyors are simply more convenient, offer more options for saving money, and tap into a nearly limitless inventory that even my local Borders or Barnes & Noble can’t match, much less the locally-owned mom & pop shop. So, is there a point in clinging to bookstores? Might we be better off taking our own books (or Kindle!) to the local coffee shop, along with a laptop to browse new titles? What is it about bookstores–besides the rare occasion when a book is needed IMMEDIATELY and it happens to be in stock within a reasonable drive–that makes me feel some sort of sentimentality towards their very existence? I love what bookstores offer to me, but my way of using them is simply not profitable for them (apart from the $4 latte I’ll occasionally buy). As our generation grows older and a greater proportion of book buyers move online, how is this business sustainable? What are your thoughts?
Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user polifemus.
If you haven’t noticed, there is a great discussion taking place in the comments of my last post. Several readers are chiming in with great insight about the Amazon Kindle, books, and reading in general. Check it out, and join in!
[Taylor, I pinkie-swear I won't write about Apple or Steve Jobs after this post for at least one month.]
I won’t go into detail about what happened at Macworld yesterday. I leave that to the multitude of other bloggers who are on the ground in San Francisco. But something was definitely in the air, and it was a pretty great event. If you want to catch Jobs’ keynote, see here.
In an interview with the New York Times following his presentation yesterday, Steve Jobs put in his word about several initiatives being undertaken by his competitors. He had this to say about the Amazon Kindle, the web commerce giant’s e-book reader that marks its first foray into physical products:
“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”
Continue reading ‘Steve Jobs on Reading’
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