Are electronic books mere "Kindling"?

The “Kindle” name for Amazon’s portable electronic reading device is suddenly leading to some frightening associations.

They stem from Amazon’s recent deleting of sold copies of Orwell’s “1984” from customers’ Kindles. Seems the electronic copies were sold by a bookseller who didn’t have the rights to Orwell’s classic.

The episode reveals that “buyers” of Kindle books are really lessees of them, and Amazon can cancel the lease at any time.

In the world of real books, of course, what you buy is what you own — and can sell. (Local note: that's why our Hillsdale used book sale was such a success yesterday.)

It turns out that a Kindle’s content is, as they say, “tethered” to Amazon. It might be more accurate to say that Amazon customers themselves are tethered to the retailer because the Seattle-based on-line merchandiser has a direct line to data about customers’ buying (and reading) habits. To say nothing of their credit card numbers.

That’s scary enough. But here is a technology that is frighteningly Orwellian, hence the irony that Orwell’s “1984” was the deleted book. How Big Brother would have loved to have the power Amazon does.

If this technology supplants real books and falls into the wrong hands, books and the free expression of ideas in “print,” are doomed. They can be expunged at the push of a button in some governmental, or corporate, “Ministry of Truth.”

The name “Kindle” in this context brings to mind another classic on the subject of thought control: Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” in which mass book burnings forced “renegade” scholars and historians to memorize books in order to preserve them.

Of course computers also “memorize” books — until they don’t.

How to prune a literary garden

When I sorted through my books last week to prune those to donate to the annual Hillsdale Used Book Sale (July 26), I discovered several duplicates.

What was I thinking when I bought these “seconds”?

Was I even aware that I already owned one copy?

Consciously or subconsciously, I must have felt that they were worthy of duplication. Or maybe I was simply covering my bets. (Interior monologue: “Did I lend that to someone? Better buy it. I can always give it away if I discover I still have a copy.”)

Well, I’ve vowed that the days of duplication are over and then some. I’m getting this collection down to a size I can manageably read before I’m pruned by the Great Pruner.

One year I went through my books resolved to remove volumes I had no intention of reading — ever. Then I discovered I just liked having them available, in case.

Then I've tried culling books I have actually read. Confession: they are a distinct minority. I'm a painfully slow reader. Of course the mere fact that I’ve read a book doesn’t give me a reason to get rid of it. Who, after reading “1984” or “Walden,” is going to get rid of it?

So this year I considered a new approach to pruning my collection. I considered setting a number, 250, which I planned to keep. Identify those and get rid of everything else, I told myself. In my case, the donation cull would be about 750 books.

It sounds easy until you see the gems buried away in the 750.

So I took a “hybrid” approach. I met nearly half my goal. About 300 books. I filled eight boxes which have been turned over to the sale organizers. The trick now is to vow not buy any of them back at the sale. I know from experience the vow won't be easy to keep.

OK, so what are those duplicates? If I list them, you may understand how I ended up with two of these:

Will Durant: “The Story of Philosophy”

John K. Galbraith’s “The Affluent Society.”

Huston Smith’s “The Great Religions.”

E.F. Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful.”

Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet.:

Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style” (I had three copies!)

For next year, I'm considering dropping books by a single author. Like Graham Greene or Ray Bradbury or Lewis Thomas or Neil Postman. Described that way, the task sounds more like an up-against-the-wall execution. I have to remember that I'm getting rid of books, not people. Strange how the distinction isn't always clear — as in "Have you read any Bradbury lately" or "I love Hemingway."