The Liter’y Life: 2

“Obama Is From Mars, Wall Street Is From Venus”
By John Heilemann
The best piece yet on Obama’s relationship with Wall Street, explaining his loyalty to Larry Summers and Tim Geithner and why certain decisions were made. What’s most frightening is Heilemann’s convincing contention that the Wall Street community—particularly at the top—simply don’t get to this day why what they did was so bad and why the great unwashed should be so angry. They also feel betrayed by Obama because many of them supported his campaign and now even the hint of financial reform—no matter how genteel—has them frothing at the mouth as if Wall Street is soon to be turned over to the ghost of Joseph Stalin.
http://nymag.com/news/politics/66188/

The New York Review of Books/June 10, 2010
“The iPad Revolution”
By Sue Halpern
A clear-headed look not just at Apple’s newest must-have gadget but also a study of other electronic devices like Amazon’s Kindle and the Nook (from Barnes&Noble). Full disclosure here: I have a Kindle and love it, particularly for the ease of downloading a book in less than a minute (talk about immediate gratification). Also, I’ve pretty much run out of room for books here in the Berkeley house (we have roughly 2,500 volumes—but who’s counting?)*, and the Kindle obviously solves the space problem. That said, I tend to read thrillers and mysteries and classics on the Kindle, while ordering hardbacks for new books I think I’d like to keep (right now I’m reading an excellent bio of Henry Luce, a long book I decided I’d rather read in book form).
Halpern considers the whole idea of using electronic readers, and gives a fair assessment to the iPad. My advice: wait for the next generation or two.
*Apparently I'm counting. The actual total is 2,924 books in the house and the office behind the house.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/ipad-revolution/