Comments on: I Have A Kindle Now. But I Won't Read A Book On It. Discuss.

By: raluk

raluk — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 09:42:00 +0000

the reasons you stated for not liking the kindle are the ones i like the best about my kindle. i hated when people could see what book i’m reading, i like a little privacy, and put paper covers on my books, also it was a bit annoying when i used to borrow a book to a friend and they gave it back much later that they should have or in not such a great shape. a + for using the kindle is the fact i can read even books with 500+ pages and not have to carry around such a heavy book. also i like to have on my kindle stories so i can read them to the kids at the kindergarden where i work. my kindle just made it easier for me to read, because i didn’t have the space to put all the books i wanted to read, or the time to go at the library to read them there, and it allows me to read books in english(not my native language) which i can not find in the bookstores. i looooveee my kindle!

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 20:24:44 +0000

The Kindle. Hmmm. Nice and thin and light and handy–but, as opposed to what is intimated by its (British only?) advertising campaign, is there anyone out there dumb enough to put the thing in their hip pocket? I think not. (Forget its there, just once, and sit down. All you can do then is thow it away.)

Size: despite the above, the Kindle seems to have been designed specifically to fit in a bluejeans hip pocket. It’s certainly too big for a shirt pocket–or inside-jacket-pocket. (Any of mine, anyway; not without force.) And yet its screen is decidedly smaller than any paperback–any one of them, btw, being universally renowned for their ability to survive hip pockets.)

Personally, I expect to see the usual seventy-two characters by thirty-nine lines in 11pt font–which, unless you shrink the font down to a size that demands a magnifying glass, will not fit on the Kindle. I find that truly annoying. To fix that problem you have to fork out for the (oddly, far too large and) much more expensive Kindle DX–more of Kindle’s answer to the iPad, really. For me, the correct screen size is right in the middle, as I said: a screen that will accommodate 72×39@11points (plus a decent margin: at least a centimeter).

What I find most irritating, however, is the “color” of the screen. Granted, the text is as clear as clear can be–but the print, which is not actually black is, rather, a dark shade of gray. Add to that, the background is far from either of the two colors anyone expects to find in most any book: white or crème. Thus, contrasting the dark-gray print is an ugly grayish shade of “white” that reminds me too much of the sole of an old sports sock. Sorry, but as handy as the Kindle is, I just can’t bear to read off that miserable gray-on-gray screen. It actually depresses me.

By: Schmidt

Schmidt — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 10:51:36 +0000

A solution to the serendipity problem: Kindle should have a second display on the BACK of the device that would show the cover of the currently read book. Wouldn’t it be nice.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:43:17 +0000

Obviously, I guess it depends on how you view books and reading…

I don’t generally lend books out to friends. I’ll share them with my wife… Maybe my kids or other family members… But that’s about it. And there’s no reason I couldn’t do that with an ebook – all we’d have to do is register the Kindles/nooks/Sonys/whatevers under the same account.

I also don’t have a problem with purchasing physical books in addition to digital ones. Much of what I read is enjoyable, but just not that outstanding. Certainly not outstanding enough that I want to keep it on my bookshelf for years to come. And if it is that good, I don’t have a problem buying another copy of it… Hell, I’m usually buying a paperback the first time around, and then a hardcover if it is good enough to keep.

As for the social aspect of being able to see what someone else is reading… Personally, I love this about my new nook. I can load it up with erotica, or bizarre science fiction, or fringe magazines… And I can actually read them in public without having to worry about people judging me.

By: Jenelle

Jenelle — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 04:19:56 +0000

It’s nice to hear someone state the same concerns I have with the Kindle. Everyone is so excited and full force about them and I know for certain I will resist them for as long as I possibly can. I’d like to add that you also lose the physical feeling of holding a book and the smell of the pages and the feel of the book in your hand. More importantly, you lose the ability to reference back within a text as easily by just looking at where in the depth of the book it was, or where the book is most dog-eared, or where the spine is broken. There’s no physicality to it. I just can’t get behind it.

By: Tom F.

Tom F. — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:13:21 +0000

John, I agree with all of your points and think you underestimate the number of other people out there who do too. Your point of view “may not be consistent” with most of the people who read your blog, but I bet it’s consistent with most un-techie people out there who just like to read books. There’s just a visceral connection people have with books, the paper pages, covers, etc. that aren’t (yet?) replicated by an electronic device. But I also agree that we’re still in the early stages and many of our objections may yet be overcome by future enhancements. So for now, I’m with you, great for newspapers and magazines, but I still prefer to read a real book.

By: Marie-Axelle

Marie-Axelle — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:43:34 +0000

I totally agree with you. Here in France, we don't see Kindles, or electronic books very often, but i guess it will come soon.
Books are such a great thing, a great object to share,annotate and look at !
Even if it's the future of our society, with the evolution of technology and the rise of web 2.0, with the Kindle we lost a lot of the charm of reading.

By the way, your blog is great !

By: laura

laura — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:17:42 +0000

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:29:47 +0000

You've articulated my thoughts exactly. The techie gadget loving side of me wants a Kindle badly, but I also have second thoughts about not owning the physical copy of the book. Is it the hubris of wanting to display the books that I have read? The social aspect of reading and sharing books? The physical memory aspect of knowing where a passage is through its position in a book? Probably all of them.

Your thoughts about connecting with someone based on the cover of the book they are reading reminded me of a New Yorker cover from a couple years ago. It is of the top of an open double-decker tour bus in Manhattan. Tourists are gawking, but one girl is engrossed in a paperback of Franny and Zoey by JD Salinger. How do I know the book? Just a few lines identify the semi-iconic cover. The cover says everything about her and I identify with her. That could not happen if she was reading her kindle.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:18:37 +0000

I see your point though the near future for books might be:

* purchased on Google Books though many would be free, available in the public domain.

* read on an improved version of Google Reader. This later would have cool sharing abilities which will attempt to solve the points you've addressed. For example you'd be able to recommend a book or share comments with the readers of the same book. You'll basically socialize around books.

* stored on Google Bookshelf which is already a feature of Google Books I think. It will give you the highly needed feature of searching your bookshelf whether it is digital or physical. Your bookshelf will also be featured on your Google Profile. This might resolved the "library problem" you've addressed.

* run on a netbook or tablet pc designed just for reading (just like the kindle or eBook). These devices would have wifi and also be used for news, blogs and web reading.

* and of course powered by ChromeOS.

Alex