Michael Patrick Brady

You can tell a lot about someone by the contents of their bookshelves, and as such, much can be learned about the Sony eReader by looking at the books along side it in its advertising campaign. Who is this product meant for? What does it hope to accomplish? Only by closely examining the few volumes deemed important enough to lend their spines to this ad can we deduce Sony's true intentions.

I first encountered the Sony eReader at CES back in 2006, and saw it again at CES a year later in a virtually identical display. It's impressive, and the electronic ink that powers it is definitely an important innovation, but the form factor and pallid green-ish display reminded me an awful lot of a larger Apple Newton. In any case, I largely put it out of my mind until these advertisements began appearing on my commuter train, and were plastered on every available surface and hung from the rafters at South Station. Despite my concerns, I was somewhat excited that the eReader was finally becoming available, but most of all, I was intrigued by the composition and set-up of the advertisements themselves. I love books and I love analysis, and couldn't help but be drawn to the ad's stack of books and come away with a few thoughts on the whole setup. So here goes:

James Patterson, Step on a Crack

Probably the most appropriate book in the stack for an advertisement placed on trains and in train stations, James Patterson's Step on a Crack is a pulpy crime novel that you see a lot of on the ride into work. It's the kind of novel that has 300 pages and 200 chapters. Seriously, I think I saw someone reading another one of his novels in the seat next to me once; the guy was less than halfway through the book and already on chapter 112. I'm not sure why you'd want to split up your story so much, but hey, I haven't sold 130 million copies (that's like 26 billion chapters!) of anything. This is the man who created the "Toys'R'Us Kid" advertisement. He knows what he's doing.

Barak Obama, The Audacity of Hope
Bill Bradley, The New American Story

Two Democrats? Is this just because I'm in Massachusetts? Do people in South Carolina or Utah have ads where these two books are replaced by The Bible and Faith of My Fathers? If it's not a geographical thing, does the extreme liberal tilt of the advertisement indicate that Sony believes conservatives are neither big readers nor early adopters of new inventions? They may be on to something.

Michael Crichton, Next

I lost track of Michael Crichton around the time I turned fifteen, and last I heard he was writing insane polemical novels about how left-wing lunatics are ruining the world. Could this be the counterbalance to Obama and Bradley? I'm not so sure. He still is known to the world as the Jurassic Park guy, and Next only dabbles in political assaults, like portraying The New Republic's Michael Crowley as a child molester. Classy.

The Jurassic Park nostalgia factor is the reason MICHAEL CRICHTON is so prominent on the spine and Next is so small. No matter how compelling his novel about human-ape genetic hybrids may be (seriously), he's on this advertisement for one reason: dinosaurs. People love dinosaurs. This transcends politics (unless you're one of those ultra-conservatives who think dinosaur bones are fake and placed by God to test our faith, I guess).

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

This book will be a lot easier to ban and censor when it's a digital file rendered in electronic ink!

John Grogan, Marley and Me

I had never heard of this book before, and when I discovered it was a story about the important lessons the author learned from his Labrador retriever, I was prepared to throw it into the Tuesdays with the Five Dogs I Met in Heaven schlock pile and bash away. But then I saw the book cover: It's an adorable dog.

I think Sony made a major mistake including this book in the eReader ad. It's a perfect example of why you wouldn't want the device. Marley and Me isn't a book you want stored away in a sleek, black electronic device. You want the real book with the real cover, staring out with those puppy dog eyes at your fellow commuters. It's probably a great way to pick up women.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

I think what puts a lot of people off of Moby Dick and Great Expectations is their density and weight. Big books, hard to carry, hard to read on the train. Now, with the Sony eReader, you can carry these books plus 78 more in a light little package! Unfortunately, the electronic ink doesn't make the prose within any less dense or weighty, and when one of those 78 other books is Step on a Crack it's going to be awfully easy to switch away from Melville or Dickens into the sweet, safe waters of Mr. Patterson. And face it, if you're reading these on the train, you want people to see that you're reading them, a la Marley and Me. Maybe if Sony integrates bluetooth into the eReader, so you can text message the other commuters' cell phones "I AM READING A SERIOUS NOVEL!!1!" they could resolve this issue.

Christopher Paolini, Eragon

Eragon is a weak Lord of the Rings knock-off written by a 15-year old homeschooled kid who tours those very same schools he refused to attend wearing a "medieval costume of red shirt, billowy black pants, lace-up boots, and a jaunty black cap" promoting his execrable tripe. If you are a literate human being, whether you are 5 years old or 50 years old, simply being in the presence of this "book" should make you feel shame. 50-year-old Eragon readers may be the prime market for the eReader, as it would hide their shame from the world, granting them an air of technological savvy others would find mature, while shielding their love of dragons and thinly-veiled plagiarism. Even Sony is embarrassed, hiding most of the title behind the eReader itself.

Conclusion

Are you a liberal dinosaur (and/or dragon) lover who's been meaning to get around to reading some important, classic novels but end up depressed that a 15 year old in a jaunty cap is more successful than you? Does this fact lead you to console yourself by speeding through 121 chapters in 20 minutes in order to feel like you've accomplished something? If so, you may want to pick up a Sony eReader.