Reading is dead. At least the old-fashioned silly-nut book kind - because we got a Kindle for Christmas!
And it is the coolest fun toy thing ever. I used to think that this was the coolest fun toy thing ever:
But I was wrong. The Kindle is coolest.
I can read books and magazines and newspapers and blogs and Wikipedia and check the weather and listen to music and read books on it.
That's cool. And it's wireless. Not that crappy wireless where ya gotta be ten feet from a router to have a connection, but "Whispernet" (oooh, that's cool!) wireless, anywhere in the country for free - even the middle of nowhere Illinois as we found out yesterday, miles from any village or Arctic research station.
Plus, the kind of crap I like to read is practically being given away and in many cases is being given away. I read old horror and ghost stories and fantasy and all kinds of crap by long-dead authors who have no copyright control (or motor functions) at all. So, I bought five volumes of HP Lovecraft, a "Complete" collection, for 80 cents a piece - delivered in seconds to the Kindle. And went to Project Gutenburg and got a dozen things by great dead guys like EF Benson, EA Poe, A Machen, A Blackburn, PG Wodehouse, ETC for free and then transferred them to the Kindle.
I'm a happy camping reader camper. How about you?
Friday, January 2, 2009
Burn Your Books
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3 comments:
I am curious to whether you experience eye fatigue from reading on screen for extended periods.
I almost never buy books anymore and use the Public Library for all my reading needs. If it could access material from the public library, that would be cool. I don't know if I would enjoy reading as much on an electronic gadget, either.
So far, so good - no eye strain at all. I get more from a PC screen or my PDA. I'd never read a book from my PDA, but the Kindle has a nice sized screen and can be read in bright sunlight without glare at all. You can adjust the text size too, for older eyes. I've set it so that it just about emulates my favorite 1920s British hardcover editions - nice amount of white space, generous between line spacing and an easy to read and none-too-small font size. I can read faster on the Kindle than from a book.
All of that said - I'll never give books, ever. I have way too much of my life invested in those pesky, poundy things (I hate moving - 3/4 of our possessions are books, very heavy books...).
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