Well Read

摘要

Jeff Bezos, Amazon's boss, pays attention to symbolism. He named his e-commerce company after the world's largest river to suggest a flood of books and other products. He named Amazon's e-book reader, launched in 2007, the Kindle to suggest that it would spark a fire (and not of the book-burning sort). This week he unveiled the Kindle 2, an improved version for the same $359, against the backdrop of a library that was once the private collection of John Pierpont Morgan. Assisting him was Stephen King, a popular author who has written a novella that will be available only on the device. The Kindle 2, Mr Bezos means to say, is about preserving a great tradition-book reading-and improving it, not about replacipg it.rnIn many ways, this is true. The Kindle is an unusual gadget in that it does not obviously target y.oung people, or early-adopting technophiles. Instead it appeals to passionate readers, who want no fiddling with cables (the Kindle works without a computer) or complicated pricing plans (Kindle users pay to buy books and other content, but do not have to pay wireless-subscription fees). It is, in short, perfect for older people. The Kindle is a surprisingly "conservative" device, says John Makin-son, the boss of Penguin Group, a large book publisher, so it is an additional distribution channel and thus "good for us". (Penguin is an arm of Pearson, whichrnpartly owns The Economist.)