A New Page

by Nicholson Baker

When I saw that the New Yorker had Nicholson Baker reviewing the Kindle, the electronic reader being aggressively marketed by Amazon, I thought who better than the man who can almost fetishize small, everyday events (like in his brilliant article on nail clippers year ago).

Baker remains more objective than I would have expected. He is the guy who owns a warehouse full of old newspapers, because he didn't want them to be cut up or recycled. He does do a pretty solid job of explaining why the Kindle does not work as a replacement for reading old-fashioned books and magazines.

From the sound of things, the Kindle is too gray and bland to enjoy reading, and it suffers from a lack of ability to properly reproduce illustrations or charts. This makes me question the wisdom of comic companies like Archaia signing up to produce 'Kindle-only' comics.... Baker also discusses the aesthetics of the device, and the difficulty of using the buttons.

What I found most amusing is the way in which Baker goes about purchasing books on his Kindle. Perhaps there is a paucity of quality releases (he does list quite a few things that you can't buy on it), but as a former book-store snob, I loved his references to writers like Mary Higgins Clark.

If you're thinking about dropping the $400 to buy one of these, I recommend you read this article first.