Snooping in the Age of E-book by Bruce Feiler

I loved this article in the style section of The New York Times yesterday. It's funny, fresh, and a new take on the old e-book story. The gist of the story is that Bruce Feiler, author of Walking the Bible,  used to gauge friends' real interests and personalities by what was on their bookshelves. Do they read political biographies? Rock-n-roll memoirs? Bodice-ripping romances? In the world of e-books, he can't snoop in the same way. So in the article he set out to find other efficient ways of snooping to uncover the inner life of his friends

Here's the nutgraf: "My heart sank. I suddenly felt trapped with an obsolete skill, like being a virtuoso manuscript illuminator in the era of Gutenberg. Even worse, I was facing an alarming predicament. How do I nose around friends’ houses when their bookshelves are freeze-dried in 2007. How do I snoop in the age of e-book?"

He finds some engaging sources who comment on the benefits of snooping in a kitchen, a bathroom, etc. They add to the story's thoroughness and liveliness. Here are some choice quotations:

“Places reflect long series of behavior. If I have a conversation with you, I just get snippets of behavior. Your books, your chairs, your wall hangings represent an accumulation over many years. A space distills repeated acts. That’s why it’s hard to fake,” said Sam Gosling, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You. This quotation validates Feiler's desire to snoop.

“You walk in the door and see a towel on the dinner table, boom that person’s a mess. You walk in and see toothpicks, boom that person is orderly,” said Eric Abrahamson, a professor at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University and the author of A Perfect Mess, a book about the benefits of disorder. This quotation helps the reader think about clues in their own house. Do I leave my toothbrush on the kitchen counter? My clean, but unfolded, laundry on the dining table?

And then the last paragraph adds a wonderful spin...“Maybe the fact that my host didn’t have an active bookshelf would send me back to the actual people. I would have to walk back to the cocktail party and ask my friend, ‘Hey, what do you like to read?’ ” said Anne Fadiman, an unabashed bookshelf snooper and the author of Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader.