"Kindle" points to departure from paper. It's O.K.!

Ha! "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated"! Yes, that is true. But yes, I think books will be replaced for some of us in our lifetimes.

A few months back I met a 17-year-old man who had never read text from a piece of paper in his life. He was fully educated, well read, and had a love of reading. But he has never written with a pen, nor has he ever read from a book.

Books have been replaced, as far as the E-Generation is concerned. I have also met teenagers who love music but who have never owned a CD. Books will always be there, but then again, so will vinyl records. Doesn't make them economically viable to manufacture in great quantities anymore, though, does it?

All Flying Pen Press books will be included as Kindle books very shortly. We cannot afford to be left behind.

The Kindle hasn't changed my mind. I still hate ebooks and the readers. And the price makes sure I won't buy the Kindle.

A book is a way to share another person's experience. As a reader, I value the opportunity whichever form it takes. I enjoy the printed page, audio books and the Internet.

As a writer, I value any format which will allow me to connect with a reader. Seems to me we should take advantage of any avenue available. I wonder what the scribes said when first told of the printing press...

Good article and well said!

Thanks Mary Beth. I guess what I was saying in my long winded way is "it's the content that matters, not the paper", and I am glad that you agree with that sentiment!

For example, wouldn't Jane Austen on a Kindle be way better than Danielle Steel on a printed paper page? Not that there is anything wrong with Danielle Steel, other than being crap.

When I used to travel for work, I bought a lot of books. Now I use the library. It seems to me this will be tricky to adapt to library use.

It may interest me more when i begin needing the "Large Print" section.

I have a copy of "a Child's Garden of Verses" given to me by my grandmother, with a handwritten note inside the front cover, when i was very young. How does one personalize the gift of an E-Book?

at that price I can't see risking it near the bathtub...and since that is one of my favourite places to read, I can't see it working for me anytime soon

How interesting, I didn't know there was an ebook other than webbased voice readers! I vote for paper books.

Why can't someone put all of this stuff together into a useful device?

I have spent so much money helping computer companies develop these mostly useless gadgets that I just rule them all out since none of them have really worked for me.

I want something that can be used as:
* a computer.
* a browser
* media player
* GPS
* a phone
* a video phone
* a camera and video camera
* a reasonable large disk archive
* with wireless connectivity
* a text/book reader
* a music player
* an audio recorder
* a calculator
* programmable device
* portable
* am/am radio
* for a reasonable amount ... < $500

If this device was programmable a market in different
programs could be created like the PERL, PHP, etc archives
on the internet and people would make their own
interfaces to their favorite programs instead of being
stuck with the really bad ones companies charge us
for and then stick us with so we have to upgrade
constantly. Maybe someday.

Dan R. I liked your comments on audio books. I have a huge libary of audio books and I really like them. It makes car trips or work around the house or yard productive, but there is something lacking. When a word or name goes by that I do not know, I do not know what it looks like or how it is spelled. How can you mark something in the margin? For the prices they charge for audio books they could give your a text book too, at least online. Still, there is so much I have learned through playing audiobooks almost constantly in my car or on walks through my mp3 player.

Bruce- I'm not sure that one device should necesarily handle all those functions. In time I am sure one could be devised that would do it all, but I think an argument could be made that it would make more sense for maybe three different devices to handle those functions.
I definitely think that what we have now, with a dozen different devices each handling a different function, is not good.

I might be more interested if it was not so costly.
Features or not, a small reading device is not worth over 100.00 to me.
I read online, regular books offline. I have a few e-books on my pc, but they do not appeal to me as much as holding the book itself. (in my hands, turning the pages)
Someday this will be another feature on the common cell phone.
Until then, I think many people will steer clear.

I expect that the price will come down in a couple years with version 2.0 or whatever. I mentioned that happening with cellphones- ipods worked out that way too, right?

Chris, I think it is much more likely that the base device that is most useful will expand with features until they are all in one device. Face it if you need multiple devices where are you going to put them, they are need the same basis things ... inputs and outputs ... might as well all be in the same well designed device.

William the site you posted is a for-pay site. People you can find lots of classics online to read on the Internet Archive as well as audio and movies too. There is a ton of stuff now that many radio shows are online. I always enjoy Cambridge Forum and Commonweatth Club. When I used to have TV I watched Book Talk ??? or something on CSPANN which I do not think exists anymore, but that is really great to keep up with books you might be interested in reading or at least hearing about.

Bruce, well it could be. Time will tell on that question.

I forgot to mention one interesting feature of the Kindle. You can subscribe to the entire New York Times newspaper at a price that is lower than the paper copy. Drawback- newspapers are clumsy on a reader. Advantage- yeah, but it beats carrying the paper around if you do not have time to read it at home in the morning.

interesting article...though I don't think I'll ever replace my books totally!

Chris ... I just have a personal rule that I never pay/subscribe to anything online. There are so many things to see that I would spend all my money and never even get to read half the things I want to.

I wish they would understand the advertising model. After all they sell papers based mostly on advertising, and on the internet they have no need for presses, power, distribution, paper, ink, printers ... huge cost savings.

But one thing I have to agree with you is reading from a device like that is a pain. I saw the Sony reader in Border's bookstory several months ago, and I really hated it. It was so hard to operate and the tiny window just did not work for me.

But I have to say that when I have bought a paper and to go out for breakfast and read the paper while eating at the table is also almost impossible.

We need something that can condense what we come in contact with in our lives, in any format to some archived form and then save it in a database of our lives that we can call up and search for ideas or events throughout our whole lives I think. Something that can translate between writing and talking and movies that makes it all accessible and able to be notated.

Too bad we are in the infancy of this. They will have it perfect by the time most of us are long gone.

How sad it would be that a work of text in paper book form disappear from our lives. There's much to be said about holding a book in ones hands while reading. The physical connection is intimate and private. The touch on ones fingertips while turning page after page somehow enhances the emotion of the author's motive.
I can't even imagine going to the beach or to the park, or even to the back yard without a book; marked in the spot where I left off from a prior reading session. How sad it would be.

Witch ... yes there is that undeniable nostalgia to books. Something that at least for me weakens whenever I have to move them or clean them or find more space for them. Of when I am reading a book and I cannot get just one page to turn. There are some books worth it though. Many magazines, newspapers and contemporary books are not really that noteworthy though. Books can be destroyed by fire or water or insects or time ... but we do not know how electronic data will fare over many decades either.

Great article! I have mixed feelings. I love books. I have a tendency to keep my books, which would be no problem if I lived in a library. I love to read. When the price of Kindle falls I want one. (It will have to fall a long way, though!)

By the way, I like the ability to change the font size when reading a "Kindle" book. This may take off more quickly with the young already mentioned in comments above and readers like me who are experiencing the onward march of time!!

I agree with what Bruce said:

> " Why can't someone put all of this stuff together into a useful device?"

I got the first smartphone ever made about 12 years ago, it was a Kyocera and I was able to browse the web, tho it was in mono. As the years passed I've updated to a Treo 650, and now I use a 755p. I can't speak more highly of this gadget and I don't think I could live without it now. I've been using one of these puppies since forever.

Bruce get a Treo 755p. I've been reading ebooks (reading Beowulf on it right now, downloaded for free), browsing the web, listening to music, radio, watching tv, emailing, etc. on my handy dandy smartphone for years now. It's got googlemaps, a still & video cam, gps, bluetooth, infrared beaming, and SD card for storage. I can also use 3rd party apps, and I think it even comes with a handy electric toothbrush adaptor lol. I'd be lost without it.

Both Kindle and iPod are currently too restrictive and proprietary, I'm not interested in products with DRM... and if Kindle doesn't let you copy and paste a few lines of a book or poem and email it then that's kind of like DRM and a proprietary feature that is there to only protect amazon's bottom line profit. Same w the iPod. Why doesn't it come with an onboard speaker? My Treo does. Why doesn't an iPod have an SD card? And why doesn't the Kindle? And why can't I beam a favorite song to a friend from my iPod? I can with my Treo. I can also beam apps. These big corporations are too busy protecting their bottom line so they limit what their products can do.

Instead of laying down $400 on a Kindle I'm planing on using the laptop I'm getting from One Laptop Per Child for my reading and it can get a charge from the sun instead of having to plug it in. You can open it like a tablet and read books on it and everything. I can't wait to get it. Their special deal is still on, for $399 you get one laptop for yourself and one is donated to some kids somewhere in the world. You get to take a $200 donation tax break on it. What could be better? They've extended this program through the end of the year. Take a look at the xo laptop:

I am having one of these things shipped to me as I write this, as well as supplying one to some anonymous third world kid. My one concern is how is it powered. I cannot wait to get my OLPC. I plan to keep it in my car and use it at wireless hot spots for
email web browsing ... I hope.

I almost bought a Treo, but there is so little capability to it, and the screen is so small, and the battery life on these kinds of things is always a problem, and typing ... forgetaboutit ... I can type pretty fast on a keyboard, but I'm not so good with my thumbs. I would never thing to read a book on something like that. I also agree with the DRM, which is why I am ending my relationship with MicroSoft at Windows XP.

What they have planned for the future God only knows but they are putting in place a way to monitor all data anywhere inside a computer so that no copyrighted material can be accessed. When this happens as far as I am concerned we will have a nightmare world

good article

I think anything that gets people reading is a good thing and I could see a use for it on long trips where you don't want to lug a bunch of books around. But for me, I spend so much time in front of screens (computer, Blackberry, cell phone, TV) that when I want to relax, I like the "reversion" to paper.

The only problem I have with paper is that since I have turned a bit far-sighted I have a hard time reading a book or a newspaper, in bed or at a table or sitting in a chair. I can read a computer at any ambient light level because the screen has its own light and good contrast, and it is usually far enough from my eyes that I can read it without glasses. I do like books though for sentimentality, and being able to mark the pages or access things quickly. I think computer technology is just not there yet ... there is more to reading than just words in front of your eye, and that is all the computer tools try to be most of the time.