WSJ Op-Ed: Hard Copy Books are the New Vinyl

(That is, a vehicle for holier-than-thou types to prove how much more sophisticated than you they are.)

A Kindle for Christmas? Spare Me

I should be the perfect candidate for an e-reader: I own thousands of books, lack space for more and often schlep several heavy volumes in my bag. So when I begged my family to refrain from getting me a Kindle for Christmas, they were confounded.

At first, they thought the problem was that I wanted another model, one that could be dropped without worry, read on my winter camping trips, and never run out of power. Then they realized I was describing an old-fashioned book—paper and binding!—and I lost them again.

Really, I can't decide what the most outlandish part of this soppy mess is. Let's just hit a couple highlights, FJM-style:

The Kindle will sweep [hard copy books] aside, its supporters say, because e-books are portable, include useful search functions, and can retrieve new titles within minutes. This last point hardly matters to me, given that I can have physical books delivered within days and already have hundreds of unread books waiting to be cracked. While a search function is useful, it also points to a flaw in the Kindle: All the pages are alike, to the extent that there are pages at all.


It doesn't matter that he could get a new book in minutes. He can already get one in days! Days, I tell you! And his copies are ragged and creased, not crisp and readable like the pages in that demon machine!

Print editions enable shared experiences in ways unavailable to electronic versions. I'm no snoop, but one of the first things I do when I enter a home is scan the bookshelves...That experience simply can't happen crouching over a hard-drive. Imagine entering a living room and saying: "Hey! Mind if I scroll through your Kindle?"

I'm no snoop. I'm sad that e-books are making my snooping socially unacceptable!

Look, I get his point. Hard copy books present a different experience than e-books, one which he prefers. His problem is the unfounded and unnecessary potshots against Kindles he peppers in throughout his screed. At some level, we all have a little of that crotchety, technology-hating Luddite in us, but at least most of us admit it.