Pang-Mei Natasha Chang
How the Kindle Can Save Your Life
A few months ago, my ex-mother-in-law gave me her old Kindle when she upgraded to the new model.
The first book I downloaded on it was last year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, The Short, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz. I finished the book on a roundtrip Metro-North ride to Grand Central.
Now, the strangest thing happened, or rather, didn’t happen while I was reading this book. No one noticed what I was reading. Nobody asked me what I thought of the book, whether I liked it, whether I didn’t. This was incredibly disorienting, reading in public and creating no reaction. An entire part of my brain that I hadn’t even known about shut down — the part that is self-conscious about what I’m reading, and what people think about what I’m reading.
Call me intellectually vain, a snob. But I’m one of those people who makes snap judgments about you based upon what you read. Sit next to me on an airplane proudly sporting a copy of the latest John Grisham or Nora Roberts, and I will give you wide berth. Clutch a Jhumpa Lahiri or a Malcolm Gladwell, and settle in.
When my ex-mother-in-law gave me the Kindle, she extolled its virtues. She suffers from cancer and needs books that weigh very little. So the Kindle is perfect for her; she could reread Gone With the Wind on it if she wanted to.
Yes, the Kindle is light. Yes, the Kindle is portable. But this is what I consider the most wondrous aspect of it: You can read in public and no knows what you are reading.
- The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Judaism
- Master Your Metabolism: The 3 Diet Secrets to Naturally Balancing Your Hormones for a Hot and Healthy Body
- The Secret
- Getting Things Done
This is a partial list of the books I now have downloaded in my Kindle.
At home, my bookcases are crammed with the classics from Austen to Zola; in non-fiction I love Didion and Derrida (okay, just Didion), but I’ve always had a healthy respect for self-help and how-to books. They have guided me through many a personal crisis. I used to buy these books sheepishly at the bookstore, have to set aside time alone and at home to read them, then hide them in the back layer of my bookcase.
Now, I just read them in broad daylight whenever I want to, whenever the need arises.
At last, reading as it should be: A personal choice. Absolutely private.
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[…] of contacts between you and the prospective customer to secure the booking for a party or event. How the Kindle Can Save Your Life – newhavenreview.com 07/10/2009 A few months ago, my ex-mother-in-law gave me her old Kindle […]
Well, absolutely private — but then you will never be able to strike up a conversation with a handsome man based on what he is reading. A fair trade?
I never see people reading books on Metro North, but maybe that’s because I’m too busy reading a book. Last Saturday I was proud to have my book visible to all: it was the new Thomas Pynchon novel which isn’t in stores yet. No one seemed the least bit curious.
You may be spared conversations about what you’re reading — but will you be spared conversations about the Kindle itself?
I often had Pang-Mei’s experience, something I cherished when I rode NYC’s subways to work on a daily basis. Since the train ride in and out was my chance to decompress, I always had a book in front of me — and I had several interesting and even strange conversations.
My favorite was someone initiating a conversation with me about the majesty of really good pulp fantasy fiction because I was bold (or foolish) enought to read in the open one of Robert E. Howard’s collection of Conan stories in public.
The only thing cooler was when I started a conversation with a woman who carried onto the subway a portrait of a nude — of herself!