There used to be a time when a book had the power to let the world know who you are or were. Or at least come close to it. As avid readers, we all have books in our past/childhood (regardless of genre) that left indelible marks on who we eventually became, or at the very least, that somehow expressed who were at a particular point in space and time. One such work for me, among many, was Albert Camus' The Stranger. I'm sure you have your own. We'll get to that in a minute.
I happened to be living in Paris (where I was raised) when I first read the book, as an angst-ridden teenager looking for contextual meaning in a world that didn't seem to offer any well, beyond a freshly baked pain au chocolat on the walk home after school, anyway. The organic breakdown of the philosophy of existentialism offered by Camus, therefore, fit me to a T. And I proudly carried the book with me everywhere I went, during those confused years. Its cover, strategically displayed under my arm, was the temporary badge of identity that accompanied me in my quest to discover my eventual permanent identity. The jury's sill out on whether that mission has been accomplished, yet.
But I digress. The point of the above, little personal anecdote is to bring into focus the fact that there are times when we do want a book to be judged by its cover. But, because of technology mostly, we're quickly losing the ability to communicate who we truly are through the books we read. Kindles, Nooks, iPads they've all pretty much decimated our physical bookshelves at home, leaving only the titles we'd purchased back in the Pleistocene era for everyone to see. Slate recently did an interesting piece on the subject and all of its ramifications.
Yeah, I know. As an eBookstore, what are we complaining about? The demise of the print edition is our bread and butter, after all. Well, don't get us wrong, we're not complaining at all, really. We're just pointing a finger at the way technology has profoundly changed our lives and the way we express ourselvesyet again. And, make no mistake, the bargain we're all striking by purchasing eBooks is, after weighing all factors, a damn good one. Think savings, ease of availability (apart from the morass of territorial restrictions) and just ask the college kid who no longer has to carry six different overweight textbooks around with him/her on the way to classes. So what's a little loss of visible personal definition, in the end?
And as Kelley so astutely pointed out to me recently, there's a theory out there that purports that one of the reasons romance (our best-selling category) and erotica do so well in the eBook format is specifically because no one can see the cover to the book you're reading. There's something to be said for stealth reading, after all. But maybe you can tell us a little more about that?
We'd really like to know. What book cover/spine define(d) who you are or once were? And don't be shy. What book title would you use to fill in the blank
