My son sent me a link to one of my books, now available on Kindle, Amazon’s brand-new e-reader, which has just debuted. The reader looks viable and intriguing–I’m not going to give up books entirely, ever, but a device that holds 200 books would save so much weight and time when traveling!
What do you think? Ready for a true e-reader, or still resisting? Does this one look any better than the others? I kinda think it does.
Still not cheap, though the titles offered are quite affordable, at around $10.
Traveling…I always carry a book while traveling, but never finish it during the trip. During a trip a book is just for reading before I sleep or on the plane if not sitting next to someone I want to converse with, otherwise I’m busy doing stuff I planned to do on my vacation.
I can’t ever see myself owning anything other than paper books (unless, God forbid, I go blind, and there are audio books for that.) I like to flag favorite parts and have the words exist on something I can touch, not depend on batteries or electricity to see words on a screen, where they could just go POOF, and disappear. Then what do I have…nothing. I have never looked at a book on a reader, but I can’t get the image of an Etch-a-Sketch out of my head. Probably the reason I envision the words disappearing….LOL
It’s a cool concept but I like owning books too much. I was going to say it’s just too hard to read on a screen, but that is a pretty good size. I dunno, it just seems so nerdy. I love books for books sake. It would be kind of cool for vacation tho. But that’s a pretty expensive reader to use a few times a year.
After about a day with mine (yes, I caved and bought one immediately) I can say its best feature is that, when you’re reading, you’re not thinking about it. The display is unbelievably easy on the eyes, and it’s lightweight enough to hold comfortably in bed, in a chair, in the bathroom, whatever.
Regarding flagging favorite parts: you can! You can “dog-ear” any section or even highlight passages. All of these are automatically indexed for you so you can find them easily. Pretty cool.
Feels really awesome to fire up the Kindle store, browse to a book, and have it in under a minute. (Or get the first chapter of things for free, so you can sample–like a physical bookstore.) The $9.99 pricing is the ceiling, not the floor. It applies to new releases and bestsellers. I bought a copy of Philip Pullman’s “The Subtle Knife” for $3. Pick up a copy of the New York Times in seconds for seventy five cents. Etc.
I don’t see any conflict between having books and the reader. They’re both valuable in their own way. One of my big headaches is finding room for all of my books, storing them, figuring out where to give them away when I’m finished, etc. I’ll never not own some books, because I like them very much, but it’s really what books give me that I’m so in love with–a window into another life or time, information, inspiration. That comes from the words, not the form.
So, as a reader, I’ve been waiting for a good e-reader for a long time. As a writer, I’m even more excited by the possibilities of actually being able to keep my backlist in print.
LOL, Ian. Should have known you’d have one already. Can’t wait to see it and play with it!!
And I didn’t realize $9.99 was the high end. That’s even better.
Wow!! This may be the answer to MY particular dilemma-sooooo many books :{. Truly, I do love books (and I love bookstores so much that I work in one-NOT Amazon), but there are so many of them that I only want to read and then be rid of and it bothers me that all those trees die for that. When it becomes a little more affordable, I will own one, as it is just one more way to read and I’ve never found a way that I did not like to read the printed word-fact or fiction. Hope I can see Ian’s while he is home.
I wish people would realize that almost all the paper for books and magazines are from farmed trees — a renewable source that produces oxygen for our atmosphere while they’re growing — and has a much smaller carbon footprint than any recycled paper out there. The growers of the trees get an income, and far less harm is done to the environment than the chemical processing and transportation costs that are necessary for recyled content paper.
That’s not to say that I don’t look forward to some electronic reader device at an affordable price, and the Kindle sounds very interesting.
Cynthia,I’d love more info on recycling vs. farmed trees. Do you know any good links?