plingyplang

Taking trains and trams in Berlin, I noticed: people reading. Books, I mean, not pocket-size devices that bleep as if censorious, on which even Shakespeare scans like a spreadsheet. Americans buy more than half of all e-books sold internationally — unless Europeans fly regularly to the United States for the sole purpose of downloading reading material from an American I.P. address. […] I began asking the multilingual, multi­ethnic artists around me why that was. It was 2 a.m., at Soho House, a private club I’d crashed in the former Hitler­jugend headquarters. One installationist said, “Americans like e-books because they’re easier to buy.” A performance artist said, “They’re also easier not to read.” True enough: their presence doesn’t remind you of what you’re missing; they don’t take up space on shelves.