But in shame and secret, the other day I Googled Kindle, Amazon.com’s offering to the world of electronic readers – just to research it, you understand, never to be converted. I needed ammunition to fight the good fight on behalf of book publishers everywhere. And having looked, I’m afraid I could, I just could, be converted!
It appears that the Kindle is the size of your average paperback, but thinner and lighter, and the promise is that you can download any book available on wireless reading devices in less than a minute, for considerably less that it will cost you at your local bookshop. Not only that, but the great newspapers of the world are at your fingertips – you can download the New York Times while you’re waiting for a flight or sitting on a train. The promotional video shows a screen “that reads like real paper”, with pages that turn at the press of a button. You can download a chapter to read free of charge, before you decide to buy. There are more than 300 000 books available, with New York Times bestsellers at $9.99 – tempting? Definitely.
They’re expensive, though, at US$359, and you’d have to save a lot on downloaded books to justify that expense. Which is what I keep telling myself as I rearrange the books on my bookshelf! On the other hand, though, perhaps this is what’s needed to start the electronic generation really reading!
What do you think?
