Jane

By CHARLES McGRATH Published: May 28, 2009, NYT.

“…But if the Kindle isn’t the future, exactly, it’s a precursor. What it tells you, even if you are an unreconstructed book lover, is that the future will not be as hard to get used to as you imagined. Books are heavy, the Kindle reminds you, and they take up a lot of room. (I wish I’d had a Kindle last summer, when on a nearly monthlong trip to China I lugged along an entire suitcase full of books just so I wouldn’t run out of something to read.) And though we think of them as permanent, our books are slowly combusting right there on the shelves, the pages growing yellow, the bindings stiffening and becoming brittle.

One of the odder sensations of reading on the Kindle, though, is a sensation of eternal presentness. Your books are all there, perfectly preserved. The device even remembers exactly what page you were on last. On the other hand, as you read along, there are very few cues to how near you are to the beginning, how far from the end. You’re always in the middle.

There is, of course, the problem of eternal sameness. Set in the same typeface, everything on the Kindle looks exactly like everything else, except that some books and publications occasionally turn up with unjustified margins, and for some reason a James Patterson novel I tried to read decided to dispense with apostrophes. Poetry, because the screen is so narrow, sometimes looks bad, and so do plays in verse. And you can’t help missing the pleasing variety and design of books, the dust jackets, the illustrations, the layout of the page.” more

thepoptimist:

Great article about how many introverts approach travel differently. I have to admit, I’m drawn to articles (like this one, titled “Caring For Your Introvert”) that describe personality differences between introverts and extroverts. A sample of the article:

“But I don’t seek people out, I am terrible at striking up conversations with strangers and I am happy exploring a strange city alone. I don’t seek out political discourse with opinionated cab drivers or boozy bonding with locals over beers into the wee hours. By the time the hours get wee, I’m usually in bed in my hotel room, appreciating local color TV.” (Via Kottke)