Digital culture

Rod has a post up today about the joys of books and the emptiness in our lives that the Kindle and devices like it portend:

This week, packing all those books around, I would have been grateful for a Kindle, to have stored them all on that hard drive. It would have saved us lots of labor, and me literally some pain and inconvenience. But I literally cannot imagine our house without books everywhere. I love everything about them: the way they look, the way they feel in my hands, the way they smell.

To this I would add the ability to show off what you’ve read. “Show off” isn’t quite the right word, but hopefully you can see what I mean: the ability to demonstrate your interests and breadth of knowledge in a quick and easy manner to those who you bring in to your home. For me, this has always been a brilliant secondary use of books. They indicate in easy shorthand just what you like to do and what informs your personality.I know more about a person from looking at their bookshelf, CD racks, and DVD collections than I would over a half hour conversation.*

I wrote about this a few months back in the Times. I’m pretty sure I’ve used this quote here before, but I still think the most succinct version of this idea comes from the movie “High Fidelity” when John Cusack’s character says the following:

What really matters is what you like, not what you are like. Books, records, films — these things matter. Call me shallow, but it’s the fuckin’ truth.

*This is not entirely because I’m a poor conversationalist, but that little fact probably doesn’t help things.