• Does anyone else feel like Motoko Rich just writes essentially the same article over and over again?  (Cue the “Don’t you just write the same post over and over again?” comments.)  Each piece is basically a variation on this:  “For years people read this way, but that is changing. Thanks to technology they are reading – gasp – a different way.  Some argue that this is the end of the world.  Others say it’s no big deal and really isn’t that different.  But don’t worry, most people are still reading the old way.” Don’t believe me?  Consider this piece on social reading and this post about reading a book on a cellphone.  Also, the social reading piece has more than a hint of classist sneer to it, I think, with book club members portrayed as Chardonnay-sipping Oprah fanatics (some are, no doubt) while those who prefer reading in solitude are, well, Virginia Woolf.   These types of articles always end with a reaffirmation of the status-quo:  “That doesn’t stop Mr. Bucher from having a deeply intimate relationship with books. “I still read the book at home at night by myself with one lamp,” he said. “The next day it does enhance my experience to talk about it.””  And:  “But Mr. Bryant acknowledged that the iPhone, while convenient, did not serve every reading purpose.  “I’ve got a 3-year-old at home, and he really digs books,” Mr. Bryant said. “I remembering pilfering my parents’ shelves, and if everything is on the iPhone, he’s just not going to have that visual temptation. So we keep the shelves loaded.””  I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.

• Worth reading:  At HTML Giant, Blake Butler uses the most recent issue of Fence — in particular the editor’s note by Rebecca Wolff — to decry the “smallness” of most literary magazines:  “So many magazines and publishers fail financially because first they fail to enthrall, because their contents are bound in breadth enough that they are forced to compete for attention by things like movies, and often wheel around the elements that make text capable of approaching, creating space untouchable by another medium.”

• And lastly, in a bit of shameless self-promotion, I have an essay at The Millions about The Real World and the rise (and fall?) of reality television:  “Season two of The Real World is, arguably, the single most important season of any TV show of the last twenty years.  It is one of those watershed moments that happens once or twice a generation.”  Also of note:  Choire disagrees.

Is this sort of collaborative or social reading the future?  At the moment, the consensus seems to be that the future of ereading lies not in browser-based reading experiences (ie, any platform that requires you to read on a computer) but rather in handheld devices like the iPhone or the Sony Reader.  It’s clear, though, that this sort of browser-based reading experiment might provide a way of creating real communities around books and around something most of us have considered a solitary activity — reading.  While I enjoy reading a novel without interruption or commentary, the case is different for non-fiction books.  I might like the option of seeing more indepth examples than an editor thought appropriate to include.  Imagine further if those examples came from other scholars on the subject.

Take, for example, Kaya Oakes great new book Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture, the book I’m currently reading and enjoying.  Oakes’s book is 210 pages with notes, and while I think it’s more than enough for the average reader, I find myself wanting to know more about specific anecdotes or people mentioned in the book.  If I were reading the book on a Book Glutton-like system, I might be able to put a note up asking for more information on those subjects.  Oakes herself might be able to respond, but even if she chose not to, someone else might.  Maybe another author like Michael Azerrad might weigh in with further thoughts on what made The Minutemen and SST Records so unique.  Or maybe Mike Watt himself would drop in an anecdote or quote that didn’t make it into the book.  It’s this kind of possibility — the possibility for a real network or readers to make the act of reading the book more informative and more enriching — that really excites me about Book Glutton.

Don’t get me wrong:  I love the solitude of reading.  As a culture, we’re not getting anywhere near enough solitude or time for contemplation.  And I’m not arguing that the form of the book change all that much.  I think authors need an endpoint, a place where the book is done.  I see everything happening after that as being at the impetus of the reader.  I suppose I see this kind of reading experience as somehow supplementary to what we now think of as reading, something extra for people who want or need more.

Vroman’s will be hosting Sarah Dunant at All Saints Church on Wednesday, July 22.  Two tickets are free with purchase of the book which will be released tomorrow (If you don’t want to purchase a book, tickets are $5 a piece).