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posted by n1 on Sunday June 15 2014, @03:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the tl;dr dept.

Tim Gray, writing in the New York Reviews of Books, has a very interesting article that asks whether it has become impossible to find the uninterrupted blocks of time that are needed to read serious works of literature, and whether the change in the reading environment is also changing how books are written.

Ordinarily I ignore the "Computer Bad! Destroy Society!" arguments, but I have to say that what he describes seems all too familiar. I can't recall the last time that I actually sat down for two or three hours just to read.

I grew up spending hours each day, every day devouring books of all sorts. Is this a thing that's lost to people raised with Internet, Game Consoles, and Smartphones? Pardon me if I sound like an old fart.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by khchung on Monday June 16 2014, @03:40AM

    by khchung (457) on Monday June 16 2014, @03:40AM (#55766)

    Do you know why I recommended a Kindle instead of all other kinds of free ebook readers? Cuz I tried them before and, for some strange reason, I read a *lot* more on Kindle (the app, not the device), and only on Kindle.

    I tried to put stuff to read on a Palm V (anyone remember Advantgo which can pull websites and sync to the Palm? I probably misspelled it anyway), I downloaded free books into the reader app there also. I finished maybe 10 books with it, in all the years that I owned it, while still carrying physical books around.

    Similar experiences on all similar PDA devices all the way to my current phone (I got reader apps on my phone), but none let me change my habit of carrying a book around until Kindle.

    What makes Kindle work for me? I can't say for sure, but convenience is definitely a major factor. First is the ability to sync where I was across all devices, and the second is the huge selection available from Amazon. Yes, I know project Gutenberg have lots of books, but being able to see a book mentioned (on websites, on billboards, or anywhere) and found that Amazon has a Kindle edition most of the time, and I can have it *right away* (for a price) is a very convenient.

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