Kendall on Kindle

Okay, I've read the ads and one review about it, so I think that I can comment on this new reading device. The Kindle is now available...in Zimbabwe, Myanmar and the Falkland Islands. Us hosers will have to wait for Amazon to notice us. This intrigues me, because I have just read a review of the device by Ian Brown, columnist for Canada's very own Globe and Mail. Apparently, the international version of the device was not available, so Mr Brown made due with a less universal version. This gave me enough info to form some thoughts on e-books and e-readers.

Mr Brown did not like it. Did not expect him to. Complaints: no page numbers (only something called location numbers); percentages given (stating how much of the book has been completed or needs to be read, in case you cannot wait); the "text-to-speech" feature (far too robotic-sounding); heaviness; screen's lack of a light source (for night readers); rushed text (a little confusing, but I think he meant that we have to be careful about how often we click if we are on a particular screen); poor choice of literature (no Philip Roth, no Diary of Anne Frank, no One Hundred Years of Solitude; it does have Twilight and Mr Brown states that it is good for genre fiction). Telling line in his review: "[R]eading on a Kindle is to reading a book as having sex while wearing (two) condoms is to having sex: It's still technically intercourse, but doesn't feel the same".

On that happy note, I want to say that I agree with this review without having used the device. I do own a laptop, but I have no desire for an iPhone, Blackberry or any other portable device that eats up my time and costs more than it is worth (a friend mentioned someone he knows who got a +$400 phone bill after taking his portable device with him on vacation). I use books, which means that I have piles of them available at hand, and there is a library nearby that also feeds my addiction. I do not want to boil this collection down to a digital code. But I think that this new device is going to be a hit.

Yes, there is no cover, no spine, no pictures of the authors who created the work and no way to share the book your reading with someone who does not own the device. But I remember the complaints about the first paperbacks (the first Penguins were condemned by George Orwell), but they survived and remain with us today. It will be hard to get the latest toy out of curious hands and much harder to critique anything that allows people to read more frequently. But I am not here to praise it. I have my doubts.

I don't think that I will use it because I cannot think of any books that I would like to read on it. I subscribe to magazines and newspapers on line because of the convenience of scanning for the latest news. I read books in order to expand my knowledge and sensitivity about what makes us what we are (yes, I love fiction and poetry). To read on a Kindle is not to read at all; it is to scan. I cannot imagine reading War and Peace or anything by Shakespeare on one. So, not for me.

But perhaps for that lover of genre fiction it is a true gift (would work well with Choose Your Own Adventure books or the Adrian Mole series). Let's see how this plays out.