I have been resisting an e-reader for as long as I possibly can, mostly because I am a hopeless, nostalgia-obsessed romantic. I dream of owning a home with an entire room dedicated to (real, actual) books — shelves upon shelves of delicious books — all color-coded and arranged by height, of course.
I might be a little nuts.
But when I read about “booktracks” being added to e-reader applications like the iPad, it was just one more reason for me to shun e-books altogether. According to an article from Wired.com, the start-up “brings movie-style soundtracks to the written word… and come(s) with added ambient effects, spot sound FX and a musical score.”
The blogger makes no bones about it — he thinks it’s a terrible idea. In fact, he titles his post “Bad Ideas: Booktrack Adds Sound Effects and Music to Books.” He argues the sounds jar a reader from the world as he or she imagines it. And, after all, imagining the world that the author has created is really the beauty of a book.
It reminds me a bit of the children’s books that have the sound strip on the side, so you can press the “boing” or the “achoo” at the appropriate times. I’m sure I loved those books as a kid (and every child I ever babysat fell in love with them too), but who wants that for an entire 400-page novel?
Has anyone tried this new technology? Or would you be interested in it, if it became more widespread? Leave me a note in the comments.
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