We got a Kindle last year to get a clue about ebooks, and at times I find it magical–I wanted to re-read The Wind and the Willows, found it in one minute in their Kindle catalog, downloaded it (for free as it’s public domain) within 30 seconds.
The entire book was summoned like an elemental, some spirit from the air, as if it were flying around the house and I was able to summon it into this tablet. Zoop, it was there. It feels different than finding and downloading something on the internet. More mysterious. Whoosh, the Wizard of Oz appears in my hand.
I downloaded my novel EVERYTHING IS BROKEN to see its Kindle appearance. Whoosh, it was summoned from the ether and appeared in my hands.
The Kindle is readable; so is Nook. They work just fine. But the physical book, with its pages, its heft and smell, has a romance, a seduction, for those of us for whom libraries were the refuge of our childhood…
I’ll miss the smell of a new book when they are gone…
I thought that I would feel about the kindle as you do. I have been reading physical books for over 50 years. I thought that I would miss the heft and smell and the clever design of pages and print.
I received a Kindle for Christmas the year before last, and I thought it was a waste of money. I found, however, that the experience is all in the words and in a moment I learned to press the next page tab with my thumb as naturally as I turn pages. I like that I can adjust the font size so I can read comfortably.
A well designed kindle book has chapters and a working table of contents and images that size well to the low resolution screen. I get frustrated with the slipshod formatting of the Gutenberg.org books, but I can live with it. I feel the same about some of the badly made physical books that I’ve read.
I have been converting books to kindle format from other sources, and collecting all the free stuff I can. I have hundreds of Kindle books ready to read. The thing about the Kindle is that Amazon is always there to collect its cut. Once I learned to find good books at Gutenberg and other sites, I rarely had to pay for a book.
The other morning I woke up with a taste for Murray Leinster, and had many of his novels from Gutenberg, but I brought an old paperback from the 60s with me on the bus. I haven’t lost my taste for real paper, yet. The Kindle is different, but not better or worse. The words are the thing.
Keith