The whole Whole Foods thing doesn’t seem to have worked out so swimmingly. The whole keeping-your-employees-happy thing doesn’t appear to have done so well either. I was inwardly digesting all this when news reached me of a truly startling development, one that makes me wonder if the world is spinning in a new direction. For here, in a new ad, are real human beings becoming so absorbed in their books that the worlds within those books come to life before their very eyes. Monsters, cartoon characters and other strange happenings occur, and our readers don’t notice. Presumably, because they already see it all in their minds. “That Reading Feeling Awaits,” concludes the ad. Personally, that reading feeling helps me get through that work feeling, that annoying feeling and that Oh-God-the-flight-is-delayed-again feeling. Yet there’s one even more discombobulating aspect to this ad and the message it conveys. The majority of real human actors in this ad are reading a paper book rather than a Kindle. A paper book is alive with odors and wonder. A Kindle is alive with lifelessness. Paper book sales are actually going up, even if readership is going down.
