As much as I wanna finish reading Emile Zola's Germinal, I can't resist blogging about this. K, so the Kindle is hailed as the iPod of the literary world... It's a...well...it's a digital gadget designed to keep e-books... And as a person who doesn't mind lifelong imprisonment inside a library...Well of course it catches my fancy...I guess the question that immediately comes to mind is: will it be able to replace books? Hmm... I still love the feel and smell of paper books, the browsing amongst beautiful hardcovers in bookstores, and above all, I still need to be surrounded by a roomful of books to feel that a room is truly my own...
That being said, the Kindle has lotsa cool stuffs:
1. You can "carry" 200 books around with you at anytime. (This will eliminate the need to stuff my luggage with english books everytime before I go back to Indonesia...)
2.E-books are cheaper than paper books (though you can't lend the digital copies because of copyright issues.)
3.It is, of course, extremely environmentally friendly, and I think it can become popular based on this strength alone...as a book lover I probably shouldn't say this, but the amount of trees cut down to produce paper for wussy chick-lits is scandalous..
4.You can read while eating because turning pages take just one click...Fantastic!!! It's irritating to keep alternating between flipping pages and holding your spoon....
5.You can change the font size..which is really useful for those with bad eyesight.
6.You can read in the dark.
7. Amazon is in the process of building a digital library where if you subscribe you can ideally access ANY BOOK EVER PRINTED. How cool is that..
One part that I still have doubts on though.....because the Kindle can be connected to the Internet, reading a book can become a community activity... e.g. a "book club" can meet virtually and chat about a book while reading it at the same time, readers can add footnotes disputing/ agreeing with authors on the e-book (which is admittedly quite neat, say if you read a book about Christianity, it'll be interesting to read footnotes written by people of other religions, even atheists... and people can discuss biases or propaganda inside history and political books....) Furthermore, there is the possibility of subscribing to a book...As in, the author has access still to the e-copy of the book so that he can change the ending if he changes his mind, or even ask readers' opinion on how he should continue the chapter...
Wow...I mean, at least now when I re-read my favorite books I don't have to worry about the ending having been changed huhuhu... And for me reading a book cannot be a community activity... after reading, yes, it's great to discuss books amongst friends, but when reading it...I expect to be transported to another world where it's just me exploring the authors' mind, watching the characters at play...
Plus, it's not funny if someone hacks into my library and, say, turns Harry Potter into a gay.
Nope, so not funny.
Ah well, for now it's still in its infancy (and have I mentioned that it costs $359? Wa...shucks...)
Oh but they recently unveiled an even sexier version...Meet the Kindle 2:
...just in case some friends who are going to the U.S are wondering what to bring back for me... hehehehe...
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