Furtive ebook readers push Hitler's Mein Kampf up the charts

[klr]

Gott in Himmel!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/13 ... k_popular/

Only neo-Nazis and painfully self-conscious pseudo-intellectuals actually want to be caught reading a copy of Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic diatribe Mein Kampf - which might explain why the book is riding high on ebook charts.

In a trend first noticed by Chris Faraone at Vocativ.com, Hitler's jailhouse book - particularly the $0.99 or £0.99 version - is proving quite popular on Amazon. Today, the cheap edition ebook is number 16 of the top bestsellers in the Society, Politics and Philosophy section of Amazon.co.uk and the sixth highest bestseller in the Politics and Government section of Amazon.com. A £2.49 edition is also number 8 on Apple's British iTunes store in Politics and Current Affairs, while the $2.99 version is 16th on the US iTunes list of most popular in Politics and Current Events.

While there are of course legitimate academic reasons to study the text and regular folks may just be plain curious about the book, reading Mein Kampf isn't exactly the sort of thing people will want to do on the commute to work - which could be exactly why it's proving so popular in ebook format. Just like modern-day porn/romance novels like Fifty Shades of Grey and horribly written but immensely popular books like the Twilight novels and Dan Brown's offerings, Mein Kampf can be read surreptitiously but right in everyone's faces at the same time via the anonymising format of an ereader.

Which makes you wonder what else folks are hiding on their ereader screens - and what book they'd be more embarrassed to be caught reading. Does it depend on the situation - such as the CEO walking in on the IT team feverishly scrolling through C++ for Dummies? We don't know, so you tell us - what's the most embarrassing book to be seen reading?

[Svartalf]

I think the most embarrassing book I've been seen reading was Da Vinci Code... I was so mortified to have let myself be caught by the buzz into buying and reading that piece of crap...

There are other books I've read that I'd be embarrassed to be seen with, but I touch those only in private.

[klr]

I think the most embarrassing book I've been seen reading was Da Vinci Code... I was so mortified to have let myself be caught by the buzz into buying and reading that piece of crap...

There are other books I've read that I'd be embarrassed to be seen with, but I touch those only in private.

As well you should be.

[Svartalf]

I could not know it was that crappy till I read it, but I'm mortified enough there's no need to rub it in

[Faithfree]

I think the most embarrassing book I've been seen reading was Da Vinci Code... I was so mortified to have let myself be caught by the buzz into buying and reading that piece of crap...

There are other books I've read that I'd be embarrassed to be seen with, but I touch those only in private.

It's just a paperback novel - it's quite ok.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I couldn't get half way through Main Kampf. It's dull, repetitive, rambling bollocks.

[Svartalf]

I think the most embarrassing book I've been seen reading was Da Vinci Code... I was so mortified to have let myself be caught by the buzz into buying and reading that piece of crap...

There are other books I've read that I'd be embarrassed to be seen with, but I touch those only in private.

It's just a paperback novel - it's quite ok.

I've read lots of paperbacks, few were as badly written.

[Clinton Huxley]

My kindle is full of Jackie Collins....did I say that out loud?

[laklak]

I read Mein Kampf, because I thought I should. Same with the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. I'll never get that time back. I blame teh Jooz.

[Svartalf]

Karl Marx was one seriously self loathing joo

[Hermit]

People buy Mein Kampf? Copies of it used to be given away to every member of the Hitler Youth, and full versions of it - in German and translations into other languages - are available via free download.

I am no more embarrassed by owning my father's copy than I am of having the family bible on my shelf, Sartre's Being and Nothingness, several volumes by Freud and quite a few other publications consisting mainly of nonsense. With the exception of Sartre's turgid tome, I have read them all, and I am not embarrassed about that either.

[Warren Dew]

People buy Mein Kampf? Copies of it used to be given away to every member of the Hitler Youth, and full versions of it - in German and translations into other languages - are available via free download.

I am no more embarrassed by owning my father's copy than I am of having the family bible on my shelf, Sartre's Being and Nothingness, several volumes by Freud and quite a few other publications consisting mainly of nonsense. With the exception of Sartre's turgid tome, I have read them all, and I am not embarrassed about that either.

Once you read Sartre, you'll realize you should have been embarrassed all along to have had it on your shelf. You may even see fit to replace it with a copy of Da Vinci Code to lessen your embarrassment.

Not that I'm admitting to having read either Sartre or Da Vinci Code, mind you. Absolutely not!

[Hermit]

Once you read Sartre, you'll realize you should have been embarrassed all along to have had it on your shelf.

Why? Does owning a book containing unadulterated rubbish mean one agrees with what is written there? Should I be embarrassed to own a copy of the Bible, The Communist Manifesto, Watch Tower's Did Man get here by Evolution or Creation? or Ellen G. White's Your Home and Health?

Being and Nothingness is not the only book on my shelf that I gave up on reading after not many pages. Another one is Aldous Huxley's Ends and Means. In the latter instance I even remember at what point I hit the first hurdles: Just a couple of pages into this collection of essays Huxley mentions "ultimate reality" and shortly after a "spiritual reality underlying the phenomenal world". At least he indicated early and very clearly where he was heading: New Age mumbo-jumbo. It's a pity that he writes so fucking well. When I picked up The Devils of Loudon, I was practically uncontactable by the world around me until I had finished reading it. Same with his other historical novel, Grey Eminence.

Rambling now. I better stop.

[FBM]

I couldn't get half way through Main Kampf. It's dull, repetitive, rambling bollocks.

I had a very different experience. I thought it was unimaginative, redundant and failed to establish a clear premise.

[FBM]

I also gave up on Being and Nothingness. Before that I'd given up on Being and Time, but for a different reason. I just couldn't see devoting the rest of my life to spending 3 days per page figuring out wtf Heidegger was saying.