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I'm a librarian, so when the topic of reading or e-books comes up, I'm usually in with both feet. To tell truth, I'm rather the budding e-book snob and when my partner ordered a Kindle the day they appeared (and sold out) I tried vehemently to pooh-pooh the decision: horrors, the drm! the proprietary format! It's just ... simply f-ugly! We had a Sony reader which he didn't really like - and I couldn't blame him really. A geek like me willingly performs any number of weird conversions and technical steeplechases to hopefully achieve the 'perfect' reading experience, the ueber-ebook.
He just wanted to read. (sigh... go figure)
Sony's byzantine software / web store, scarce supply, and non-existent customer service made that very difficult indeed for the ordinary mortal.
I chuckled to myself: but just you wait, mister. Just see how disappointed you'll be with this limited excuse for a reading device. Why, it'll be on the next UPS truck back to Amazon. You'll see!
It arrived - I was there. He opened the package, the device displayed "hello Kenneth" and already listed the books he'd pre-ordered. I knew it was over then. This wretched thing and its slinky version 2.0 grandchildren will no doubt be part of our lives for a long time to come.
We took it along for Thanksgiving and the clan loved it. Weird. It was passed from hand to hand as the younger folks eagerly downloaded the free first chapter of any book they wanted (out of 90,000 +), trials of the New York Times and Le Monde. No computer or wi-fi needed. No one , *no one* said it was ugly. No one asked about drm. Kenn's dad said, "why, you know this will probably change the publishing world forever!". Right.
In the last few days I do find myself playing with it more. There are lots of things I would improve but I feel like some corner has been turned. Maybe in its own way, it is as revolutionary as Amazon.com was in its early days. Anyway, more thoughts later, but for now, while not a convert, I'm certainly an interested observer.
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