B. J. and the Bear Were More Into Nabokov

Kobobooks, the ebook arm of the Chapters/Indigo book chain, makes its products available through a reader device and a variety of apps, including one for the iPhone/iPad. They recently updated it to include new features. They're running a wee lag in the reader app functionality race. Surely, for example, they're working on a version that immediately loads the page you were reading when you last switched apps, rather than giving you a wait spiral. However, the new feature they got to before that is social networking. If you define "social networking" as "getting a bunch of weird pre-generated messages, just like you do on Facebook."

So now when you highlight a passage for the first time since updating the app, you get a notification informing you that you've received a game-style achievement. Like a lot of game achievements, its practical purpose cloaks itself in mystery.

Of the messages, I got while reading Natsuo Kirino's Highsmithian character study Grotesque, however, the champion had to be a message purportedly from KITT, of Knight Rider fame. Apparently I'd opened the app after midnight, because the talking car was pleased to hear that I was a Night Reader. Get it? Knight Rider: Night Reader!

This is a funny problem, not a problem problem. But it's one of those times you can't help mentally recreating the pitch meeting. I am picturing in particular the exquisite interplay of chagrin and smirk on the expression of the one Internet-savvy participant at meeting, as the idea is excitedly approved over her carefully phrased misgivings.

Here's my pitch: they should get Presto the Magician from the old D&D cartoon to grant an achievement the first time you turn on the scrolling function.