Literacy Coming to Kindle

The publishing world has been in a tizzy for some time now – writers not able to sell their manuscripts, the big publishing houses in New York crumbling, the fear that the American population will wake up tomorrow actually illiterate.

If you listen closely, you can hear the protests coming from publishing CEOs and crusty novelists alike, It’s the Internet’s fault, damn it! First, television was going to destroy literature. Books on tape were another threat. Then, the Internet was bound to do it. I recently graduated from a MFA writing program in May. The lectures I attended during my stint, discussions of technological advancements in the publishing industry, provided enough Doomsday prophesying to make the 1999/2000 computer scare feel like an elementary school fire drill.

Yeah, I admit it. I go on the Internet. Often, actually.

Yet, somehow, I still manage to read a book here and there, too.

Machines have not, and will not, destroy the literary world, as inventions like Kindle have shown us. Kindle, a reader that allows the consumer to download an entire novel onto a portable machine thin enough to easily carry, has struck fear into the hearts of writers everywhere. Not sure why – the number of books downloaded on Kindle are astounding, and these books are not free. Perhaps readers aren’t buying the $32.95 hardcover version of a new release, but they are reading it nonetheless.

The skeptic in me can’t help wonder what good comes from holding onto the purist view that readers need to purchase a material object in order to enjoy a story. Don’t authors write to share their gift, not pay for that second beach house in the Hamptons?

Hear you hear me – I love books. My black Ikea bookshelf might be my most prized possession – all the books lined up neatly, colorful covers of classics and soon-to-be classics; there’s even some trashy (but delightful – editor Susie Bright’s annual Best American collection rocks my socks) erotica in the mix. I’m not suggesting that physical books are out of date – just that maybe there are different ways to enjoy literature.

E-books are now made available when a new book is released. But what about all the greats that came before the Digital Age?

In The New York Times on July 22, a literary agent named Andrew Wylie is profiled. He has begun a new company called Odyssey Editions, which will publish e-book versions of novels written by the likes of John Updike and Vladimir Nabokov (he penned the oft-referenced Lolita). The article states these books, along with about twenty other classic titles, will be made available exclusively through Kindle for two years. This company will help gain more profit for these writers and their estates, and allow a new generation of readers to experience these books, often for the first time.

Twilight, Harry Potter, and now, The Grapes of Wrath. This kind of integration and advancement promises a combination that even the most alienated purists will be unable to ignore.