Okay. Confession time.
I’ve ordered a Kindle.
My brother ordered one first — back in November, in fact — and his arrived just a little more than a week ago. He’s been in e-book Nirvana ever since, gleefully reporting that the device “just melts away” in the hand, leaving the reader caught up in a trance of effortless, friction-free reading.
There’s magic, you see, in the idea of book that can be any book — or, at least, any book Amazon.com sells (or any classic texts downloadable for free from any of dozens of online libraries, or any electronic text you email or transfer to the device yourself).
There’s magic in the business of books whizzing through the air and appearing on demand.
There’s magic in the business of my newspaper, my favorite magazines, and a pile of a hundred fiction and non-fiction works being compressed into a leather-bound package the size of a single paperback book.
Steve Jobs is a brilliant man, but in dismissing the Kindle as he does — by saying, “No one reads any more” — he reveals the limits of his imagination. Fewer people may be reading … but those of us who are passionate readers are more than willing to invest in a device that feeds our addiction.
Oooo, I had seen that advertised on Amazon and had been wondering if it was all it claimed to be.
Hmm… Having just returned from a trip to Guatemala, and being the inveterate reader that I am, I can never carry enough books comfortably for a long vacation (especially to a country where buying English-language books I haven’t already read is difficult). Now if only they could put my bird identification guides on there 😀