Spying on how we read « Music Machinery
One feature of the Kindle software is called Whispersync. It keeps track of where you are in a book so that if you switch devices (from an iPhone to a Kindle or an iPad or desktop), you can pick up exactly where you left off. Kindle also stores any bookmarks, notes, highlights, or similar markings you make in the cloud so they can be shared across devices. Whispersync is a useful feature for readers, but it is also a goldmine of data for Amazon.
Some charts I’d like to see:
- Most Abandoned - the books and/or authors that are most frequently left unfinished. What book is the most abandoned book of all time? (My money is on ‘A Brief History of Time’) A related metric – for any particular book where is it most frequently abandoned? (I’ve heard of dozens of people who never got past ‘The Council of Elrond’ chapter in LOTR).
- Pageturner – the top books ordered by average number of words read per reading session. Does the average Harry Potter fan read more of the book in one sitting than the average Twilight fan?
- Burning the midnight oil – books that keep people up late at night.
- Read Speed – which books/authors/genres have the lowest word-per-minute average reading rate? Do readers of Glenn Beck read faster or slower than readers of Jon Stewart?
- Most Re-read – which books are read over and over again? A related metric – which are the most re-read passages? Is it when Frodo claims the ring, or when Bella almost gets hit by a car?
- Valuable reference – which books are not read in order, but are visited very frequently? (I’ve not read my Python in a nutshell book from cover to cover, but I visit it almost every day).
- Biggest Slogs – the books that take the longest to read.
- Trophy Books – books that are most frequently purchased, but never actually read.
- Most efficient language – the average time to read books by language. Do native Italians read ‘Il nome della rosa‘ faster than native English speakers can read ‘The name of the rose‘?
- Entertainment value – the books with the lowest overall cost per hour of reading (including all re-reads)
The thing that I find interesting is that the Kindle essentially kills the Trophy Book phenomenon. No one can see what you’re reading on the subway on your Kindle, but everyone who’s seen me this week knows I’m plowing through Blood Meridian (and trying to figure out exactly what the appeal of 300+ pages of admittedly wellwritten descriptions of people and animals getting killed in creative ways is).
And I mean, I always look at that guy on the train reading Lolita, or a Pahlaniuk book, or whatever and wonder how many times they’ve read that book on the subway. Is it a pose? Well, there’s no reason to buy a book just to have it on your Kindle, like there’s no reason to buy mp3’s just to have on your iPod. It might be hyperpersonalizing things, but it’s also taking away the sort of conspicuous-status-by-display of it all.
I dunno, I have books that I have bought because I’m like “omg I should so have this book I know I’ll want to read it!” and then it’s sat on my shelf for years and years unopened. I think with the ease of buying on Kindle that might be even worse for me (if I had one) but maybe not because I wouldn’t have the allure of used book store goldmining and prices…
Yeah but there’s still a difference between buying books with the intention of reading them (ahem—my History of the IRA is still unread, though occasionally poked at for reference, and I have a To-Read stack literally half my height at the moment) and buying books with the intention of having them looked at. The Kindle kills one, not the other. You know?
