Brooker and Kindle
February 17th 2010 08:12
In a recent piece he wrote about being given a Kindle e-reader. As a result he became an immediate e-book fan after having denigrated the whole idea up until then. It wasn't specifically because of the Kindle, but more because of the way in which his imagination runs riot with the previously unrealized possibilities of this kind of machine.
As he says: Just as it was easy to dismiss MP3s until you'd test-driven an iPod, so the advantages of an ebook really become apparent only when you use one. And then of course he goes onto list those advantages, such as people on the Tube not knowing what it is you're reading because they can't see the cover - there isn't one.
So he could be reading a celebrity bio when people would naturally think he was reading The Journals of Soren Kierkegaard, He explains why they might think this in a way that's too convoluted to go into here.
Having a Kindle is rather like ordering boring old office supplies and finding that the store sends you a lazy boy that actually lets you work in it without losing all your bits of paper, or your laptop - or your Kindle.
There's line after line in this column that are really funny - [The Kindle] can also read books aloud, which is great if, like me, you've spent years wondering how the great works of literature might sound if recited by a depressed robot. - to give just one example.
Check it out. You might read him more often.
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