Will You Sign My Kindle?

A few days ago a humor writer named David Sedaris was giving a reading at the Strand bookstore in New York (a monster-sized store to which every bibliophile should one day make a pilgrimage. Their motto: "18 miles of books").

As is customary after a reading, Sedaris offered to sign books, and his devotees lined up. Then, according to an article in The New York Times one reader presented not a book for Sedaris to sign, but a Kindle. On it, Sedaris wrote this:

Now, as my regular readers know, I'm not one of those elite literati who believe e-books will eventually destroy our love of books and bring about the complete ignorance of humankind. (After all, we're doing just fine developing complete ignorance without the e-book, thank you very much).

But I do believe e-books will transform our reading habits. I do believe they will transform book publishing in ways we can't yet predict. And let's face it. Once Apple gets in the e-book game (which I'm assuming/hoping will happen any day even though I have absolutely no reliable information on this whatsoever), all the rules will change. An Apple e-book (or . . . uh . . . i-book?) will likely do to the book industry what the i-pod did to the music industry.

Remember what happened? At first, when it became obvious they'd no longer be able to sell mountains of CDs, music industry executives griped and whined and used words like "extinction." Then, they calmed down, took a look at the world around them, realized people still wanted to listen to music, and adapted.

I think we'll see the same thing happen in book publishing in the coming years. Right now, we're hearing a lot of book publishers predicting doom (along with David Sedaris, half-jokingly on the back of a Kindle).

I believe, however, that the book publishing world will adapt. People love good stories, and book publishers will not serve themselves by hemming and hawing over the emergence of the e-book. Rather, they need to calm down, realize that people are excited about e-books because people love to read, and adapt.

The e-book is not the end of literacy. It could, if the book publishing industry makes the right choices in the coming years, be the next great step in advancing it.

A Kindle Review - And a Birthday Wish

At WWADY, we're celebrating a special birthday today -- mine.

And as many of my readers already know (because I've been talking about it pretty much non-stop), I want a Kindle 2.

I want one. I want one. I want one.

I want one so badly, in fact, that not since Ralphie pined endlessly over his Red Rider BB-Gun has man engaged in so much shameless coveting.

Alas, my birthday wish is not to be. Even with the $100 prize I collected today by taking first place in an essay contest, I'm still coming up desperately short of cash.

So while I won't be playing with a brand new Kindle 2 today, I did get the pleasure of reading a playfully-written review of the Kindle 2 on MSNBC (which is, of course, no consolation at all).

Check out the review here. It's by Helen A.S. Popkin. It's funny. It's informative. It's titled, "I have a Kindle 2: Jealous much?" (Clearly, dear Ms. Popkin was thinking of me when she wrote her review. So, yes, Ms. Popkin, I am jealous. Much.)

Finally, while I'm far too old to believe in such foolishness, as you read this review, please do me the favor of thinking these words:

"Birthday miracle . . . birthday miracle . . . birthday miracle."

I Want One -- I WANT One -- I W-A-N-T One

There's a lot going on at WWADY this week.

We're deep into So Brave, Young, and Handsome (and not to sound like a nag, but it's not too late to get your copy and read along).

I'll also be traveling to Chicago on Wednesday to attend one of the largest conferences for not dead writers (it's called AWP, which stands for The Association of Writers and Writing Programs -- though I guess the acronym should technically be AWWP or TAWWP or TAOWAWP). I'll report on the conference when I get back, but plan on an amazing report as featured speakers include Pulitzer Prize winner Art Speigelman, short-story master Charles Baxter, and about 900 other mind-boggingly-brilliant authors. For proof, check out the list of presenters here.

The news of the day, however, is that Amazon's released a new version of the Kindle. I've been scraping pennies together for months to save the $359 it takes to buy one, and this new version just might motivate me to scape together nickles and dimes as well. Check out the video below, and drool along with me.