THE AUTHOR IN PLACE OF THE BOOK | December 11th 2007

Ariel Ramchandani declares the new Barnes & Noble media channel to be lonely but lovable. It's great to hear an author talk; it's sad not to share the moment with friends; and it sure makes you want to buy more books ...

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE

I have spent three hours at Barnes & Noble's website in the past day, and probably over seven hours in the past week. Now this may not be quite a world record, but it is a pretty long time—and I wasn't even holiday shopping. I was exploring B&N Media, a newish section of B&N.com, which serves up audio and video interviews and tapings of author readings, talks, performances, podcasts and anything else they can dream up with a book in it somewhere.

The amount of time I can spend at an online bookstore is nothing compared to how long a person (and by person I mean myself—I can't speak for power online shoppers) could spend in a real, live bookstore. No matter how many emails I get professing to know what books I might enjoy, or how many plays I could purchase priced at $.001, the experience of going to the actual store cannot be replicated. It is fun to touch books, and to look through them, and watch other people look through them. And the fact that you can do all these things in a warm clean space with good light and a bathroom doesn't hurt.

I would postulate that bookstores, perhaps singularly unto themselves, provide a comforting mix of solitude and community. You can get lost in the first chapter of something, amidst the quiet hush of turning pages and stacks of books. Also deeply social places, a good bookstore experience involves the reassurance in human company and the ability to let your eye wander over to the customers near you.

Perhaps you take the combination of aloneness and community that I have just described to be a given, a generalisation of the shopping experience. But I mention it because it is something that online booksellers must puzzle over how to achieve. A media center that shows footage from a store is one way of trying to bring the feel of the store into your home.

I'm going to fault B&N Media at the margins. When clicking through the site I was never comfortably alone, because every interview included a loud interviewer jostling me away from the voice of the author (admittedly the nature of the beast), and every screened event included sweeping views of the crowd and inaudible audience questions. Nor did I feel a part of any online "community": it is incredibly lonely to watch what you know to be a social event, by yourself, with headphones. For every reading I saw I wanted to be part of the audience, exchanging a glance with my friend or a stranger about what that crazy, animated, or thoughtful author just said.

But still, you do at least get to hear "what that crazy author just said", and at the time and place of your convenience. Maybe the result is that you will hear a lot more authors.

Outside live readings, book jackets and college, the involvement of an author with my reading (or book-shopping experience) has been pretty negligible. But online media (and reality TV) can elevate anyone to celebrity status. You may watch an author on B&N.com whom you wouldn't ordinarily have gone to see, and become familiar with their face and mannerisms.

And maybe the experience is the finished product: when you watch a show on the Food Network you don't eat the food, and when you listen to an interview with an author on B&N Media you don't have to read the book. Who knows how often omitting to read the book may improve one's enjoyment of the author?

If you like cooking, check out Michael Ruhlman and Anthony Bourdain, "live from B&N". I recommend highly the interview with Maira Kalman "One on One", in which she speaks very lucidly about her work and marriage. The authors make the site. Some are awkward; some are funny; and most, especially the good ones, make you want to give in to B&N and go buy the book. Which you could do right then and there or, if you are a sucker like me, go into the store for some old-fashioned solace and fellow-shopper contact.