The kindle

[anemone]

I've been thinking I should make a "Now that Novelty Has Worn Off, What Do I Think Of The Kindle" post for a while, and I was spurred to make this post by someone looking to buy. The short answer is that even with the novelty gone, I am happy with the kindle

Comments

[ms_1516]

K, thank you for posting this. We're thinking of buying a Kindle - especially when we go on international trips and don't want to lug a lot of Arpan's books with us. I've got to look into how many books for kids are available on the Kindle. Any easy way of finding out?

Thanks!

[anemone]

I know they have some children's books--my nieces added a couple samples when I was visiting--but I don't know how many. You can go to Amazon and in the search box, select "Kindle Store". Some classics may be available for free on gutenberg.net.

[oscarmama]

Thank you for this!

As I understand it the color screen is for the textbook market, specifically for anatomy etc. and for younger grades where the selling point is that the children aren't overloading their spines when they overload their backpacks.

I suppose they also might try to sell children's books that way, but I'm happy with my hardcover copies of _Bats in the Library_ and unlikely to want to switch formats.

[anemone]

I don't think a color screen would be enough to make it good for a children's book or a textbook. It's a lot smaller screen than most textbook pages, for one. (And I wouldn't want it any bigger for reading novels.) For another, textbooks pages are often laid out in a way that doesn't translate as easily to the kindle as straight text. A color kindle would be nice for a book with a few color plates, or maybe an illustration here and there, but that's about the only real utility I see for color screen.

(Also, right now, the software isn't ready. The screen can make pretty pictures, but some of the books I read had simple line-drawing maps, and the kindle made them unreadable.)

[hukuma]

Do you think you read more books now than before you bought the Kindle?

[anemone]

Yes, I have. I would not claim I've read much mind-improving stuff on the kindle, though.

[mthomas3]

I find it irritating how few people, in the publishing industry, do not know that underlining text makes it harder to read. The folks who maintain the APA reference format redid all their reference styles to eliminate underlining -- this is not unknown trivia of the "Captain Kirk's middle name" variety.

I think I may be getting even more nit-picky in my old age. (Am now reading "Eats Shoots & Leaves", the bestseller about punctuation.)

[susanofacadia]

thanks for posting this! i've been thinking about getting a kindle, and it's good to hear comments from a friend rather than random internet-people.