E-Readers Review

[jedrider]

It's in final editing. Should be ready by June ... May, if if lucky.

What! No Nook edition of your first novel?

I have multiple e-Readers: I am trying to get a feel for them.

So far I have narrative stuff on the Nook Simple Touch and heavy, real apocalytic, reading on the Kindle 3. You're messing up my routine

[careinke]

The basic medium was still the same then, Careinke---real ink on real paper, real illustrations, and real tooled-leather bookmarks---ah, now that's living.

The sterile e-thingy is different in every way. Maybe it's better for some, but it's not better for me.

It's amazing to me how complacent and cooperative people can be as Central Services jerks them around and steals the best things away.

It was in jest. FYI, I don't have an e-reader either. Although, it could be an option (with a solar recharger), for "How To" manuals in a post peak world. I worry about storage of books long term.

[jedrider]

The irony of the digital age – unlimited information storage for unlimited time but eventually, no way to access it.

I don't know about irony here. However, the human population explosion has also resulted in an explosion of things to read. Fortunately, the public behaves at a pre-literate level and doesn't demand as many books as you would think a mostly literate society would demand.

Anyway, I have trouble with book storage. The e-Reader is a technology for it's time, undoubtably, and IMO not a gimick at all.

Sometime, in the far future, people will be trying to get a box to work that contains all the books ever written. Then, our written history will just go blank!

[Lore]

The movie, The Book of Eli, presented a farely plausible post-apocalyptic view on the nature of future literacy.

[furrybill]

The idea of carrying around hundreds or even thousands of books on one small platform is just amazing. The black and white screen is specially configured for reading and for me easier on the eyes than a normal book. There are lots of sites where you can download free books or buy collections for $0.99, and there's a free application called Calibre that you can use to organize your library on your computer. One of my prep tasks is to download as many of the "classics" as well as how-to books as I can so that they'll be available to children and grandchildren just in case...

I need to "carry around" only one book at a time, thanks. And I seriously doubt that an electronic screen is "easier on the eyes" than a paper book; that's just the sort of empty assertion a salesman would make. I can get real books practically for free (and absolutely for free at the library), and how long do you think those 99-cent downloads will last? This is just another form of dependency on others. There's nothing remotely preppie about it.

Might be an empty assertion from a salesman but in my case it's reality. The 99-cent download lasts for as long as I can get my hands on some electricity - how long will that library last? Sorry but it seems to me that history is full of people burning down libraries, I prefer to build my own, especially in a form factor that makes it tremendously easy to hide from other people. And what's really got me curious is how you think having my own books in electronic form is dependency on others whereas assuming I can get them at the library isn't? Your logic seems a bit backwards to me here.

Regardless, it's all about what you're comfortable with. I like em, you don't, tomayto, tomahto...

[Heineken]

Yes, you're welcome to it, all o' ya. I'll stick with mine. And we'll BOTH be happy. (But one of us will be happy-ER.)

[Lore]

There are 48 known first editions of the Gutenberg bible from 1450 remaining. That's 561 years longer then any Kindle will last without a shot of juice, no matter how many books it holds.