Kindle - Part 2

First, a short, non-nerdy explanation of the device (Aus facts only), followed by how to justify the purchase when there are so many arguments against getting one, floating around in the meme-set.

What is a Kindle?

It is an electronic book. It is chained to Amazon.com and you can buy books on it from their library. The book content is delivered over the “Whispernet” which is a jumped up phone network.

It has a black and white screen that does not project any light and it measures 15cm diagonally across. It is as inert as a piece of paper and can manage 16 shades of grey. It uses what I call “Growed up Magna-Doodle” technology.

In a nice leather cover, it is the size and thickness of a 300 page, new release paperback. In the same case, it weighs 450 gm, 170 more than the paperback. It has noticeable heft. I like that sort of thing, but then again, weight equals quality when it comes to my primitive quality assurance criteria.

Justifications.

I live with another inveterate reader in a two bedroom flat. We are out of bookshelf space.

When we moved out of our last suburb, we were excited because we were getting a new library catchment area. To our tastes, we’d finished the local ones. Sure, there were stands of bodice-rippers and Mills and Boone to get through, but we decided it was easier to change pads, than palates. I started thinking about electronic books a few years ago. It seemed a sensible way to store the pulp, one-off reading.

I used to subscribe to the fetishist arguments about the niceness of owning “the book”. The artifact itself was important. The book wasn’t just the words, it was a full sensorial thing (including the smell… that often comes up) but I had to examine my beliefs on this, and they were just beliefs.

I’m tough on books. I don’t treat them with reverence, and the only thing that needs to work are the words. If I’ve read a book, there will be no mistaking it for new. I loan them out and never get them back and I've got used to that. I’ve re-bought tens of titles over the years for one reason or another. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve said, “Never read Hitchhikers?! Take this.”

The whole thing about having them up there, so that there is a collection, doesn’t really bear scrutiny, either. What are we collecting? Ideas? No, I keep them in my head. What exactly are we displaying? “Look how smart I am. I’ve read all these books.”?

I’m not in the dating game, so I’m not actively advertising my intellectual credentials. And to be honest, I enjoy some outright crap, as well. Probably an even bet as to what you would think of me if you peeked at my bookshelf. If I mention in conversation that, “I was once reading…” or “I just read…” or “Yeah, I liked that one,” I’ve never once had to furnish proof. (Trusting bunch, my friends.)

I just want to enjoy the words and in most cases, I will not re-read the book. So what am I keeping it for? Expensive and dusty wall paper? I know when I’ve read a book. I don’t need to prove it to anyone else.

Another argument against electronic books is how hard the screens are to read for extended periods. I will say this for the Amazon Kindle - without a breath of hesitation - they have licked that technological problem. It reads like a page. In fact; it’s better. You can magnify on a whim and change the number of words per line with a click.

“But, my book never runs out of batteries.” With the battery life they are advertising on this thing (something I will be testing and reporting on) you shouldn’t ever be caught without something to read, either. You got used to your mobile and your iPod, what’s so challenging about this?

To me the battery argument is akin to, “But, in an emergency you can’t wipe your bum with the torn out pages of the Kindle.”

No, you can’t, and there are just some situations grown adults should be able to avoid.

So, I’m not going to throw out my coffee table books, my rare editions, my classics and anything else that fits into a vaguely ‘valuable‘ bracket. I simply want to convert the torrent of titles that damn up against the walls of my place, the books that I don’t particularly want to display, to a flow through. A passing electronic stream. Now, that’s gotta be good feng shui.