Isaac Fitzgerald has been a firefighter, worked on a boat, and was once given a sword by a king, thereby accomplishing three out of five of his childhood goals. Formerly of The Rumpus and McSweeney’s and most recently the founding editor of BuzzFeed Books, Isaac is now the co-host of BuzzFeed News’ Twitter Morning Show, #AMtoDM. He also appears frequently on
The Today Show to talk books, and is co-author of
Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them and
Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos (with Recipes) (winner of an IACP award), and the author of a YA novel and picture book forthcoming from Bloomsbury. He uses
Twitter.
15 responses
I know you’re just kidding around, but have a feeling that if you interviewed everyone using a Kindle on the New York City subway, you’d be surprised at how many are are just voracious readers with a limited budget. I’ve taken photos of all kinds of people using e-readers on public transit, and it’s a pretty interesting cross-section. They are definitely not all bespectacled, self-congratulatory, pseudo-intellectual technogeeks.
Maud, I respect that opinion, but at the same time, there are still quite a few people who go nuts with their e-reader book purchases and never get around to reading half of the books they bought. I’m not a fan of the Kindle because I’m the old fashioned weirdo who likes the feel and experience of real books…that, and I wear glasses and strain a little when I stare at a screen like that too long. However, I can see how it can be convenient for some people. In Isaac’s defense (although it was probably in jest…sorta), from my own personal experience with Kindle users, a majority of my colleagues here on the west don’t have them. 4 out of 9 in our Brooklyn office do. Of the four in that office, only 1 of them actually reads the books she buys on there (probably on the subway), while I know at least two of them either bought one to either be tech-savvy and/or collect tons of affordable “buzz books” to show people that they have it to give the illusion of literary hipsterness (see: Franzen’s “Freedom”, Wallace’s “Infinite Jest”).
Maud,
You are absolutely correct to point out the income factor. Appreciate the comment. : )
Why exactly is it bad that people buy books on their Kindle they may not read? Don’t people do this with physical books?
I agree with Maud. NYC Kindle usage isn’t a function of elitism, but of mass transit.
Full disclosure: I live in San Francisco, not exactly a city free from “bespectacled, self-congratulatory, pseudo-intellectual technogeeks,” but was raised on the East Coast. As always: anything that leads to more reading is a good thing.
if you are reading Infinite Jest on an e-reader, you aren’t truly reading Infinite Jest. feeling the weight of it’s constant presence is half the fun.
I got so curious sitting beside a big, burly, totally unexpected e-reading guy the other day on the subway that I leaned over and kindle-snooped him. I thought it was sort of interesting that I only needed the first (and only) two word I saw to determine that he was reading fiction: “Rand grabbed…”
I mean, I *think* I was right; that was my immediate impulse, anyway.
I lobby for digital rights given with the hard-copy book you buy at your favorite (local independent) bookstore… hell, I might even pay a few bucks more. I would get a lot more reading done if I had a digital copy on my computer-client Kindle during downtime at work, but I prefer snuggling with the hard-copy when I’m back home.
Of all the reasons people buy e-readers, I don’t think having “a limited budget” is one of them. The cheapest Kindle costs $139. Sure, maybe some ebooks are cheaper than paper-and-ink books, but you’d have to buy a lot of them before you break even. I know that a lot of classic literature is free on the Kindle, but there’s already a great place to get free books: the library. New York City has great ones.
I don’t own an e-reader (surprise) and I don’t plan on getting one, but I suspect many people buy them for the same reason they buy other flashy, cutting-edge gagdets: status.
Right on Mike Andrews. Paying $139 for something that you then have to purchase books to read on is a pretty dumb way to save money. If these folks with e-readers are really trying to save money, and not just trying to look hip, maybe they should go to the library. Free books! It’s crazy!
It’s only a dumb way to save money if you overlook the fact that there are thousands of *current* books that are freely available, let alone classic works. Not to mention the ecological savings.
How many of you who say that e-readers suck because they prefer paper books would be baffled by someone saying The Rumpus sucks because they prefer their culture magazines on paper?
I bought a recently released book only available in hardcover using the Kindle App on my phone to save money. But that’s because I didn’t really care to own that book. I just wanted to read it once, and I knew it would be forever before I could get it from the library. So I rented it, which is what one really does with an ereader. The reason I would never own a Kindle—and I would never recommend that anyone ever own one—is DRM. If I’m going to pay for something, I want to actually own it, not just be renting it. The only thing it’s smart to rent is an apartment, because then you don’t have to fix things when they break. If they got rid of DRM, I would be totally down with e-books because of what Maud said. But until then, I’m not going to trust Amazon with anything I paid for. (Or maybe if the Amazon people would fix sentences when they’re broken? Make Dan Brown good or something?)
Since when is San Francisco calling the east coast elitist? Especially in regards to technology. Throwing stones, Isaac…
Blame the study, not the man.
Isn’t using the library kind of stealing from an author? Or do we still only assign the “greater good” of public knowledge to books, ’cause they make you “sooper smart?” If every library stocks as much Dan Brown as mine does, all we’re really giving the financially disadvantaged is a lesson in overusing adverbs.
Why don’t we make movie theaters free, too, while we’re at it, and make producers ‘suck it up’ when we tell them we need free access to their years of work because it’s benefiting society? twelve bucks for their opening night release at the theater doesn’t give me my own film reel to take home.
This is all making me sound too capitalist.
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