A good friend of mine received a Kindle for Christmas. He seemed very surprised when I didn’t share his enthusiasm about it. I must admit that I don’t like the Kindle. I guess it’s less that I don’t like it and more that I don’t really understand what missing function it serves.
I love my books, and being able to see them and touch them and go back to old passages I’ve marked makes me happy. One of my favorite things since childhood has been going to a bookstore and looking at covers, picking up books and reading their descriptions, and choosing the ones I wanted to take home with me so I could explore them indefinitely. The book is such a primitive sort of form, but one that has worked successfully for so long that it doesn’t really need changing.
My friend always says, “but now I can read on the Subway!” I am confused by this. iPods and CD players make sense to me, as it would be difficult to carry around a stereo system. Books are already portable. There is rarely a time I don’t have one on me, and aside from the two months I was lugging Atlas Shrugged everywhere, I’ve never had much of a problem. I also fear some of my favorite reading spots may be dangerous to a delicate piece of equipment.
It seems more expensive to invest in a Kindle than to just invest in many books. I don’t want to pay $300.00 so I can pay $9.99 for the e-book when I could own a physical copy for $12.00. I know some books are free, but this is not enough to entice me.
I guess the only main advantage to a Kindle I can think of is storage space. This isn’t really an issue for me. Even though my apartment is tiny, it would feel empty to me without my books.
I’m curious to know how others in this program feel about the Kindle. I’ll openly admit I’m a bit anti-new technology. I like books I can touch and records and dark room photography. Maybe I’m just nostalgic, but I think the Kindle seems silly.
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I have a Kindle, and while I love it and will never give it up, I also love physical book objects and will never give them up either. I think that is a fairly common opinion of E-book readers. I have always been the type of person who reads two or three books at once. I find I read more with the Kindle, as it is easy to pick up and put down and not lose my spot.
ReplyDeleteBut I still buy books. I buy the books I'll share and sell back. I still go to the library and browse the shelves to check out new things I'm iffy about. I like getting newspapers on the Kindle, I like being able to download samples and read the first few pages. I usually wait to get the book, but sometimes the instant gratification of buying and starting a new book at 10 o'clock at night is worth it. My Kindle is full of the things I know I'll re-read and don't want to worry about the pages falling out.
As for the price point, the machine is about 100 cups of coffee. It is a nice phone. It is an airline ticket. Books are a lunch out, a few drinks at dinner, popcorn at the movies. It's not cheap, but it is not really unreasonable. And it is all worth it the first time you go on vacation and leave the suitcase of books at home.