I’m just going to say it: as much as I love technology, I feel uneasy about the Kindle.

Yes, I realize there are some good things about it: compared to printed books, digital books are better for the environment; you can virtually carry around an entire library in your pocket (no pun intended, heh); and you can even read blogs on the device. For example, you might want to use the Kindle to read a certain blog you are viewing now…?

But after two-ish decades of curling up in bed or basking in the park with a printed book, I just can’t get used to the concept of using a Kindle, or any other digital reader for that matter. What ever happened to feeling the weight of a book in your hands? Turning the pages? The joy of sticking in a bookmark once you’ve finished reading for the day and seeing how much is left to go, and how far you’ve come? And what about the smell? Reading a printed book is a multi-sensory experience. Reading a digital book is not.

But after reading Jacob Weisberg’s recent ode to the Kindle on Slate, I am willing to give the Kindle its due. A little. While Weisberg both sings the praises of the Kindle and concedes that it isn’t necessarily an all-purpose instrument (for example, he points out that you wouldn’t use it for viewing art books, reading picture books to your kids, or somewhat hilariously, taking it into the tub with you), he also predicts that it will change the entire publishing industry:

Jeff Bezos has built a machine that marks a cultural revolution. The Kindle 2 signals that after a happy, 550-year union, reading and printing are getting separated. It tells us that printed books, the most important artifacts of human civilization, are going to join newspapers and magazines on the road to obsolescence.

Well that’s…cheery. But it’s really not all bad, Weisberg argues. The digitalization of the publishing industry might be giving traditional publishing companies a beating, but lower printing and distribution costs reduces barriers to entry for writers—or in other words, it will be much easier for aspiring writers to reach audiences. The role the publishing companies serve will be slimmed down to providing cultural arbitration and editing services, a job which Weisberg says can be done by “clever kids working from coffee shops in Brooklyn.” And as a clever kid who works in Brooklyn (or used to, anyway) I say: AWESOME. Seriously.

As for my beef about losing the experience of reading a good old-fashioned book, Weisberg says that replacing printed books with electronic ones should really make no difference; the experience of reading is, after all, fundamentally just that—reading. It’s about enjoying a good story. In fact, in an age when the quality of printed books is becoming ever crappier, and when we as readers are becoming more inclined towards technology anyway, digital books just might give literature its 21st century revival. [Slate]