Mad Hungry Mind

NYT: Unease About E-Books

In an article about the NY Book Expo, the NYT reports booksellers and publishers are worried about the future of the printed book in light of the popularity of e-Book readers such as the Kindle.

Now, I love my Kindle. Since getting it, I'm reading more than I ever did before. But have I stopped buying print-and-paper books? No! Since Kindle entered my life, I have bought the following:

• Three books about childbirth practices, from used booksellers
• Two anthologies of American Splendor
• A copy of Taking Care of Our Own, by Susan Garrett
• Several books about information marketing

And I have plans to purchase other books. What the worriers forget is that reading begets reading. The more we read, the more we read in all formats.

Why Kindle is a Good Thing:

Yesterday, during a six-hour return flight home, I read the following on my Kindle

• The last three chapters of a book about blogging.
• The first essay of Joan Didion's book, Political Fictions
• A quick-read detective novel by Robert B. Parker: Now and Then
• A couple of chapters in a marketing book
• Half a month of entries in Samuel Pepys's diary

Now, I ask you, could I have read such a range of material during a plane ride before the advent of the Kindle? Not without toting five books in my carry on. Ah, progress....

What's on YOUR Kindle?

This is silly, but it's a dream come true:

And that's only one screenful of titles...

Mad Hungry Love Affair: Amazon Kindle

My Kindle arrived yesterday, and because I had the day off I spent the latter half of it reading blissfully on my new toy. I haven't fully explored all of its features yet, but those I have I ADORE. This might be a mere infatuation, but I think it's love.

More steamy details to follow.

Kindle Hysteria?

I don't know how many of you have ordered a Kindle, but I finally gave in on 4/6/08 after weeks of reading about it and struggling with my own feelings about reading books in an electronic format.

You see, I love books. I love the heft and density of a good book. I love the way the edge of the pages get softer in a well-thumbed edition. I love the look of a pile of books, and I love photos of bookshelves, especially when located in a writer's study. I even love the disorder books bring into my life: the aforementioned piles, haphazard alphabetization, and even the clouds of dust they seem to attract (although I love this last a lot less than the others). Because I love the physicality of books, I have resisted the purchase of an eBook reader for a long time.

Ironically, the study of Shakespeare is what tipped me towards my purchase. The most compact edition of the Complete Works I have found weighs, oh, about 2.5 pounds and measures another four inches across the spine, making it fundamentally un-portable. I have been investigating ways of carrying the Bard around with me, so I can browse in the garden of his prose during odd moments at the hospital or in the middle of the night on call. I considered text files on a Palm and investigated CD ROMs of the Complete Works, but neither of these appealed to me.

Then I read about the Kindle and looked through the Kindle Store. There I found individual Shakespeare plays for $.99 apiece, and I was sold. I know the Kindle is expensive, but to carry the Complete Works around with me day and night, in a device weighing only 10.3 ounces? Priceless.

Now I know the gods are smiling upon my plan. Last night I received notice that my Kindle will ship between 4/22 and 4/29--within 2.5 weeks of my order. If you've been reading the Kindle forums, you'll know that some poor folks waited 6-8 weeks to get their Kindles, but I had the blind fool's luck to order just as Amazon was beginning to catch up on the backlog. I can't wait.