Monitoring what we read

So this whole Amazon 1984 scandal is really pissing me off, but it's also giving a little bit of joy to that secret place inside me that wants to say "I told you so!"

A recent article in The New Yorker compared the Kindle to reading a real book and reading a book on an IPhone. Despite decding that the IPhone offered a better experience than the clunky, retro, gray-toned Kindle, and the real thing, the paper and ink book, was the best of all possible worlds, the author still gave grudging props to Kindle, saying that once he got caught up in the reading experience, he stopped noticing the issues with the device.

This article kind of annoyed me, because I dind't want him to like the Kindle. I like real books. I like the way they feel and smell, and how, when you're done reading, you leave little bits of yourself there. Literally. I mean, I like the idea that flakes of skin from my fingers and hairs, and crumbs from the lunch I was eating while reading end up ground into the paper. The Kindle offers none of this. (I was also annoyed because he quoted lots of Kindle lovers who based their admiration of the device in the fact that they found library's gross.)

But far more disturbing than the lack of DNA that goes into the reading proccess on the Kindle is the feeling that Amazon knows what you're reading. They already seem to know an awful lot about me, and their recommendations are sometimes just a little too close to the mark. I'm not a conspiracy nut, so I usually don't freak out that this corporation has such insider knowledge of me. After all, what could the knowledge that I like books about France, Arthurian Literature, and post-punk, non-emo music really get them? I doubt they even really care.

But if I got a Kindle, I think I would feel like they were actually watching me read, in a sense, and then I could never fully delight in the experience. Talk about 1984, right? I know I'm not the first one to say this, but it does feel like these devices, under the blanket of DRM, are slowly pulling away one of the foundations of a free society: the right to read what we want without judgment.

So this issue with George Orwell only solidifies the fact that I will not be getting a Kindle any time soon. I'd electrocute myself with it the first time I tried to read in the pool or the bath, anyway.