New Adventures of Queen Victoria by Pab Sungenis for November 29, 2009

Sorry your Maj, we love the Kindle.

Luddite? I hardly even know him!

If the book downloads were cheap or near free, then a Kindle might make sense. I like the idea of carrying the entire library in one reader. Unless it breaks, of course.

Blank Reg on “Max Headroom” described the book as a non-volatile storage medium. And it’s my preferred format.

In many cases, trendy is more important than efficient and cheap….

I use the Kindle app on my iPhone, and the freeware Stanza, too. Both are surprisingly easy to read (once you find a comfortable position to hold it in for an extended period)– I used it on my vacation and it was great.

Until I wanted to let my neighbor read the book I had just finished… oops.

There are lots of free books and stories out there, too. But I lose the “browsing for a book while petting the store cat” experience. I go both ways– my bookshelves overfloweth, and here I am online.

Is it bed and bathtub safe? Excuse me but there is something soothing in slipping a bookmark in place just before I slip off to dreams directed by my book.

Real Books Forever! (Of course, I’ve never tried a Kindle. Perhaps the technocoolness would overwhelm me. ;) )

A nickel or less if you shop library sales.

I could never go “kindle”. I even love the SMELL of books. Part of the reason I wanna be a librarian. :)

When they go under $200 I’ll buy an Ebook

I dearly love the library!

I’d rather have a book in my hands any day. But sometimes electronically is the only way to get an old, out of print book. And besides, the Kindle might be a way to get the little goobers like Clayton, from today’s ‘Adam@Home’ to actually read.

Isaac Asimov once defined the ideal data distribution device (DDD). He said it had to handle black and white text and color images; you had to be able to move back and forth at will, so you could re-read sections; to mark places so you could come back to them; it had to be cheap, mass-produced, and sturdy enough to withstand being read in the subway and dropped in the tub. We already have this, he noted. It is called “a book.”

As I Librarian, I will never give up my books. I’d be the old lady in Farenheit 451 who dies with her books. The Kindle just doesn’t have the texture of a real book.

Sat next to a guy on a plane recently. He started out reading on his Kindle but in a fairly short time had switched to a paperback. i would miss the feel of the pages between my fingers and like someone said in an earlier comment, even the smell of the books! So yes, I’m proud to be a Luddite and to stand with the Queen!

You can get a LOT of old classics in Kindle .mobi format for free, either directly from Amazon or from gutenberg dot org. It’s far more convenient to carry a Kindle around than thousands of pages of dead trees. New books are usually $10. I really like my DX.

Neo-Luddite, actually.

The Luddites get a bad rap. They are assumed to be anti-technology. Space doesn’t allow me to give a full account of the movement, but it would be more appropriate to say that they were about “appropriate technology.” That is to say: when any new tech comes along, you should ask, “Is this, on balance, going to make people’s lives better or worse?” When the answer is worse, you have to follow up with the question: “How can we diminish the negative effects of this new technology?”

Luddism is a humane response to technological change.

I’d hate to see what happens if you swat that annoying insect with a Kindle. Or prop up a table leg. Give me a good multi-purpose paperback anyday.

With a Kindle, people don’t lick their fingers when they turn the pages, so it’s useless to poison the edges….

What?

Geeze, paperbacks used to be 15¢. And yeah, I’ve been licking my fingers to turn pages since then…

Kindle… books can more easily be made unavailable in this format…

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111487759

IMHO, the most significant problem with e-books is that they make it far easier for authors to self-publish. The old way of publishing meant that some authors didn’t get into print, but on the other hand it limited the amount of poorly-written, nearly unedited garbage flooding the market.

I’m with Her Maj.