Burning the Page: The eBook revolution and the future of reading

related to it, much like discussion questions in a book club. The chats can be private or public.
    If they’re public, they get attached to the book in digital format, like transcripts, accessible by other people, as well. In this way, books might continue the Talmudic tradition of commentary, and commentary upon the commentary. It’s a tradition started by Jewish scholars between 200 and 500 AD, and it continues to this day. Seen in this way as stories interwoven with commentaries, books will serve as town halls, literate ones where people come together and talk, and their talks will remain for those who come after them, for readers who venture into this conversational thicket months or even years later.
    These chats will probably start with text, although you could easily imagine chats happening in a face-to-face way, with video as well as audio. I can even see authors meeting with journalists and interviewers in the actual pages of their books and conducting the interviews within the books, so that the interviews themselves become part of the reading experience. “Meet me in the chapter on the future,” I’ll say to any journalist, because that’s where I’ll talk to them, right here on this page. The book can become the home where you’ll find the readers, as well as the author.
    But even once a book is done being read, the interaction between reader and author doesn’t end. Some readers are privileged. They’re either authors themselves or cultural influencers. Typically, the reviews they write often appear on the backs of book jackets or in the first few pages of a book as testimonials to would-be readers.
    This concept is archaic in the digital space, because by downloading any Kindle book, you’re going to be taken past these testimonials. You’ll be plunked down right at the prologue or chapter one. The testimonials may well be in the content, but few readers will notice them. The only place for such book reviews will likely be in the pages of legacy stalwarts like the LA Times or The New York Review of Books , periodicals that are swiftly moving into digital format themselves, making the reviews and testimonials even harder to find as they vie for our attention with pop-up ads and Facebook games animated right there on your screen.
    Paradoxically, the arbiters of taste will likely no longer be professional book reviewers but readers themselves, people like you and me. It’s a continuation of the trend Amazon started with its own book reviews, in which anyone can contribute a review for a book and the reviews can be as long or as short as you like. The inherent democracy thus provided is a sensible gauge, more sure perhaps and certainly less biased than the most astute of paid reviewers. Amazon has done a remarkable job with this and still has a leg up on Apple and Google and all the others. Even if you’ve chosen to buy Apple content for your iPad reading pleasure, you’ll still often find yourself going to Amazon to read its reviews first.
    Interestingly, some Amazon reviews are better than the products themselves—not only can they be entertaining, but they’re social commentary too. I’m thinking in particular about the Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable or the “Three Wolf Moon” T-shirt or Tuscan whole milk, all of which can be found on Amazon.com. I can read these reviews all afternoon long, laughing my ass off. The reviews likely started as reactions to odd products or high prices—the Denon product is a stereo cable that retails for $999, and a gallon of Tuscan milk sells for $45.
    Hipsters started writing reviews to mock the products, contriving fictional reasons for why the products are so expensive—with the laughable results that the milk reviews read like those for high-priced wines (“best paired with fresh macadamia nut scones”). And the Denon cable, these reviews suggest, can transmit music from your stereo faster than the speed of light, with the unfortunate side effect of summoning legions of devils into your home.
    The “Three Wolf Moon” T-shirt, with its mawkish and unintentionally hilarious design, soared into mock popularity due to hundreds of irreverent hipster product reviews and found itself to be a top-selling item in Amazon’s clothing store. In fact, I think Amazon should consider publishing a book of their best and most infamous product reviews!
    The digital space has already started transforming the engagement between author and reader, and that