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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Book Clubs taken to a new level?

With relatively little fanfare, Barnes & Noble, one of the largest bookstores in USA, released its new version of e-reader - Nook Color today. In the last post, I had mentioned how an e-reader experience does not come close to the real deal. At the same time, I mentioned that there are some areas (such as manuals and reference books) where an e-book can come in handy instead of having to lug around huge tomes. This is where the sweet spot for an e-reader to me is.

As an avid reader, one of the biggest attractions to me after I came to USA was Barnes & Noble - the wide selection of books, resident coffee shop, and more importantly, the freedom to sit down and thumb through books at leisure. During my bachelor days, I used to sit down for hours over weekend (and at times during weeknights) in the company of books (geeky, I agree). As an IT professional, this was very helpful since I couldn't afford the breadth of books required to keep myself up to date. I used to do my bit of paying back by buying coffee, snacks, their yearly membership, and occasional bargain books I could afford.

Eventually, Amazon came into being and B&N popularity declined, leading it to think about putting itself on sale. I have always felt that B&N missed a good opportunity by not capitalizing its brick and mortar stores and augmenting it with its online presence. In this era of instant gratification, it would have been nice to be able to order the book online at a price competitive with Amazon and be able to pick it up at the nearest store. I am sure that there are some pricing issues involved here, but it couldn't be any worse than losing the sale to Amazon!

Similar opportunities were missed when Amazon introduced Kindle and it took a while for B&N to get in the bandwagon with the Nook. Now, almost a year after the old Nook, B&N has announced the release of Nook Color, the successor to Nook. At the outset, this does not sound like a good idea - Nook Color is customized version of an Android Tablet. So, it does not have the advantages of an e-reader (e-ink) or that of a tablet (app store and flexible OS).

However, I think they do have two great ideas that compensates for the disadvantages - the Kids Store and the Social Networking angle. I personally am not a fan of putting kids books on an e-reader for the same reasons I had mentioned earlier - it does not carry the same emotions as that of a nice picture book held by you and your child. However, after having seen my nephews and nieces take to electronic gadgets so easily, I have reluctantly started accepting the harsher realities of life that the level of emotion attached to material things diminish as generations pass by. So, I think it is a clever move on B&N's part to introduce kiddie books on the Nook, something the Kindle and iPad have failed to capitalize.

 The other major idea is bringing social networking to reading, at least more seamlessly. I love the idea that you can 'lend' books to other 'Nook'ies. Many a times I have read a nice book that I wanted to share with others but also know that they may not really want to buy it - lending is perfect in these situations. Not only it builds a nice community, but also promotes the purchase of Nooks within these circles - it gives a whole new dimension to a book club. I can envision Oprah giving out Nooks in her next Book Club meeting!

In addition, the Nook Color also seems to have the qualities that I personally look for in an e-reader / tablet:
  1. Display color
  2. Render PDF files
  3. Expandable memory via SD cards or equivalent
  4. Additional features like music/video playback, a few games, and a web browser
There is still a question of execution. As of this writing, Nook Color is still a few weeks away from being available and I am not sure how good the device itself is. Assuming that it is decent, I hope for Barnes & Noble's sake that this causes a real revolution and evolves e-reading beyond what Kindle and iPad have been able to do.

Monday, October 04, 2010

Ponniyin Selvan and the pleasure of reading non-ebooks

Ponniyin Selvan (The son of Ponni) is a historic fiction novel created around King Raja Raja Chola, one of the most prominent and arguably the greatest kings of South India (circa 1000 AD) by R Krishnamurthi (aka Kalki), a very well known author/publisher/freedom fighter. The novel is considered a masterpiece and is an immense pleasure to read, all 1000 and odd pages of it.


Kalki (middle) shown in a depiction with the key characters of the novel
Krishnamurthi was also known for his weekly magazine Kalki that he started in 1941, which ended up becoming his nickname as well. One of the huge selling points of the magazine was in fact, his novels that were published as a continuing story that would last for a few years. The magazine is still keeping that format in tact, even after seven decades in print.

One big pastime for subscribers of the magazine was to rip the pages containing the story to make the whole novel. This was before even buying books were a common occurrence. My grandfather had such a compilation of the story when it was published around 1970. As a kid, I read the story multiple times (all 1000 and odd pages) during my summer vacations at his house, mostly on the front porch on idyllic summer afternoons. Such was the simplicity of Kalki's writing that even a teen like me could easily understand such a complex story. The novel was so powerful that after I finished reading it, I would still be stuck in the eleventh century for a few days, and even wish that I were born then!

What was equally fun for me was not just the story itself but all the additional snippets that were captured as part of the compilation - tidbits, jokes, even advertisements from 30 years back - it was kind of Norman Rockwellesque in some sense in that they were temporal snapshots and took me back in time, most appropriate given I was reading a period novel. The faded and aged look of the pages added to the authenticity. To make things sweeter, the print was also accompanied by the original drawings of Maniam, Kalki's favorite artist, which were exquisite.


I could never bring myself to read the book in a published novel form, even though the story was the same. Somehow, the charm of reading that battered compilation of magazine articles was more authentic than reading a crisp, neatly printed novel, even if it had all other elements. I missed the ads, the 70s humor of rettaival rangudu, an impish boy and his antics scattered around in some of the pages, and occasional and completely outdated "Did you know" articles that were amusing.

As we progress in the publishing media and try to replace a mechanism that has stood strong for 400 odd years by e-books, I wonder if we will lose some of that authenticity and the ability of books to transfer us back in time not just by words, but also by the look and feel. After all, emotions are triggered by the senses and not just by the mind alone. The same novel in an e-book feels even more fake to me and I don't feel the attachment I felt when I read those bound pages. Somehow our books are becoming less personal and more mechanical - and I don't know if it's such a good idea.

I would love to have an e-reader for a host of other reasons (for reading impersonal manuals, for example), but I feel that a printed book still has its rightful place - to cozy up to in bed, while on a porch, on a sandy beach, and for so many other places - it just feels right.