books

ygelsias:

In general, the Kindle strikes me as somewhat hobbled by an overly generous view of why people buy books. Not only is there this problematic lack of bragging, but with the kindle edition of the book I can’t have a handsome volume laying around the house as if to say to visitors, “why, yes, I may be a professional political pundit but I’m also a man of culture.” And I’ll have nothing on my shelf. Amazon should at least send you a sticker when you buy a book on Kindle so you can maintain some kind of display wall of all the impressive books you’ve read. People sometimes lament that element of signaling in the book buying/reader process, but I think that’s misguided. Signaling is a powerful human motivator, and often motivates people to do genuinely worthwhile things—read great books, go to college, get a haircut, etc.

i often dream of a house with conspicuous (built-in) bookshelves. i also continually update an ipod playlist for a party that will never happen.