It seems
Amazon.com has released the future.
Kindle is a reading machine, lightweight, net capable portable
ebook (or books, with enough capacity to replace one of my smaller bookshelves). Download your favorite book file, and read away. No more overstuffed bookshelves, and brightly covered
paperbacks. All you need is your
laptop, a big hard drive and the box. Maybe a hotspot and a
credit card. Throw away those heavy old tomes! You're connected, you're reading. No
trees required.
On one hand, I'm very much in favor of trees, even though books are mostly made from quick-growing soft woods rather than the exquisitely grained hardwoods that Gibson makes Les Paul's from. Moving writing from publishing to software removes a lot of the costs, printing and shipping what are very heavy objects (and thus energy intensive to move). Publishers are failing, authors can sell-direct even though all this democraticization might muddly the literary waters by putting amateurs on near-even footing with the real pros.
The thing is though, I like houses cluttered with books. I feel at home when I enter a home and find the walls lined with shelves. They feely comfy and well worn. You know if you're bored or your hostess is busy, all you have to do is browse. A nice book lined cottage in the forest sounds like an ideal life to me, a romanticized vision of human existence. I like the random access of paging through a book, the way the lay on your bed, ready to be picked up when you awake, they way they survive a fall off the bed when your lover wants something better than reading.
I like the clean, crisp printed text, so much nicer than any screen. I like the fact that you don't need batteries, just a nice sunny day and soft moss beneath a tree. Kindle denies that homey cottage, rather a sparsely furnished Bahaus, open but empty, sterile and cold.
But I probably won't need to light the light at night to read, and I might even be able to make my way to the bathroom with Avalon's misty light.
A short bit of old school tech support. Even books require customer service.