Nicholas Carr on the iPad reader and eBook reader

Nicholas Carr argues:

the model of book reading (and hence book writing) the iPad promotes seems fated, in time, to become the dominant one. The book itself, in this model, becomes an app, a multihypermediated experience to click through rather than a simple sequence of pages to read through.

And he cites John Makinson of Penguin, who "foresees sprinkling movie clips among Jane Austen's paragraphs in future editions of Pride and Prejudice."

In response Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish argues:

I remain convinced that there is a singular experience - of devoting time to read a writer's sustained and crafted words of more than, say, 50,000 words - that cannot be supplanted by anything else. Maybe this solitary absorption of another's words will become the activity of a precious few. But anyone seeking wisdom or learning over knowledge and entertainment will still look for it. And treasure it.

(h/t Andrew Sullivan)