The Kindle,

What a bore, whats wrong with books, I used to think well if anything gets people reading thats got to be a good thing right,

Wrong, its rubbish, totally a flawed concept,

Go to bookshops, not surf for a title online Amazon is flawed too.

Support your local bookshop (if it stil exists)

The Kindle does not contain every book in its library, so who decides what gets digitized and what does not.

I put it to you that this is a crime against literature, you dont need to burn books anymore just decide (and who has this power anyway?) what we can read and what we cannot.

Whats your opinion?

Well, I think that it's handy and money saving, it seems revolutionary and worth the money.

This belongs in the Technology forum.

(moved)

Meh, I've been thinking about buying it but I'm not totally sure if I wanna opt for saving up all the money to buy it.

I've never enjoyed reading books from a screen, for some reason I don't get as immersed as when I'm reading the paper version.

I'm a fan of books on paper.... always have been.

However, think of the number of trees that get cut down to satisfy the demand of book production. I'm all for the use of electronic books if it means less damage to the environment over the long term. It won't mean the end of all books.... it might mean books are harder to find in paper versions but is that really the end of the world? Most people don't even read books on paper anymore... this might actually get people to read more again.

geeogree: I agree in part with you, anything that gets people to read more would be a good thing (of course depending on what they are reading e.g Mein Kampf etc).

But in terms of tree deforestation, yes trees are cut down, mostly I think books are made from sustainable origins, although this means in practice old forests being cleared to plant fast growing evergreens, it may be sustainable and for every tree cut down 10 are planted but try telling that to the ancient woodland that had not been destroyed

Secondly the manufacture of chocolate destroys more of the rain forest than any other item given its wide spread consumption, thus almost single handedly slimming down the orangutan population with the ever growing waistlines of etc...

The reason low quality chocolate contains palm oil, which is grown in cleared rain forests. On the packet it even had the cheek to say "Vegetable Oil" to cover this up and some go even further to say rain forest friendly because the coco is, but the oil is not.

The sick sad irony is oil has no place in chocolate, its just a cheap way of bulking it up with fat, fat and sugar tastes good.

Real chocolate is made with milk and cream, there is no oil in any fine cohoclates or Autralian and in many other countries too like Ireland. Its mostly American and the UK exploiting the consumer by feeding them inferior goods.

As for the kindle, with the declining use of public libaries due to the internet and the closure of independent bookshops (and bigger ones) due to Amazon, its amazing how they are yet capitalising on their impact and killing off printed words altoghether, I think this is sad and the irony is I am saying all this on the Internet, oh well................

Totts : The Kindle does not contain every book in its library, so who decides what gets digitized and what does not.

The publisher actually does. If you check some of the books pages on Amazon that do not have Kindle versions you can hit a button that says "let the publisher know you'd like a Kindle version" or something to that effect.

I got a kindle over the summer, while I still prefer paper books (same way with wanting a physical copy of video games) I am liking the Kindle so far.

There are some advantages you are not thinking of. First everything from what I can tell has a sample. Interested but not wanting to buy a book merely on it's name? You can download a sample and read it. Second, you can get books in under 1 minute, I know late one night I was finishing up a book in a series (it's around 11) and I was able to grab the next book and continue reading a bit. Third, generally most books are a bit cheaper on Kindle. Fourth, you can carry around many books with you at once.

The screen in Kindle is actually very easy to read from and the adjustable font sizes are a nice plus as well. To me if you are into books that are a series of books it can also help you search for phrases or names throughout the series. Forgotten what a non-major character did that effected the story a few thousand pages ago? With Kindle you can search for the name and try to figure it out.

Of course there are disadvantages, but depending on what you read it could be quite useful.

Naturally I generally shop for almost everything (books to movies to whatever) at Amazon, because I can get it quickly with Prime, no tax in my state, and get it for cheaper than I can in stores.

MichaelVash7886 : "Forgotten what a non-major character did that effected the story a few thousand pages ago? With Kindle you can search for the name and try to figure it out."

Thank you for telling me that, this seems like an extremely useful feature, I frequently read books from a series and it really frustrates me when I cannot remember or know what relevnance this character had on earlier events. So the ability to search would be great, I epect that is provided you own all the other copies. The thing this does not solve, but is a helpful reminder is to read the books in series order, something I get mixed up on, I actually started my last series, with the last book written and then started to pick random books from the beginning, how I wish now I had made my life simplier, but had I not read the last book I would never have read the first, come to think of it, have I read the fist?

I agree. Books are nicer. However, my one quibble was that it would change the book business like iTunes did for music. Luckily, that hasn't happened yet. I see far more people with books than I do with kindles.

I have been wanting a Kindle for quite some time. I read - a lot. A Kindle would be great for all the reasons mentioned. Besides, it's hard to take an entire library with you on those long bus trips....lol