Kindle v. Kindling

The answer to your layout problem is really pretty obvious. Kindle books need separate editors who can ensure that these problems have been addressed. If the books were 50 cents each or free, the idea that someone wouldn't have reviewed every page on the most popular appropriate devices might be somewhat more forgivable. But when paying such a high percentage of the paper price, it's shameful that there are layout problems on the dominant device (and the 6 closest runners-up for that matter). A webpage developer would be fired. Or at least yelled at some.

I was thinking Kindle would be great for cookbooks, since I often want to search for recipes that contain, for example, rice flour.

But now I'm not so sure. Has anyone tried a cookbook on Kindle? Is the layout an issue?

I just don't get it. I mean, if it cost like $20-$50 bucks i might buy one to carry books when i travel. But otherwise? I like reading books. I'm not just being a contrary luddite, it's the actual printing on paper that I enjoy looking at, the paper object I enjoy carrying. I spend enough of my day looking at a stupid pixelated screen. I just don't get why someone would want to read books on a kindle badly enough to actually buy one.

I think you're paying for the privilege of being a beta tester. The interface is all thumbs from the look of it. The Nintendo DS already has some public domain classics loaded onto a chip and available in Europe; a touch screen interface would be far more intuitive, and a second generation chip might include maps and photographs accessible with a stylus touch--see a place name or person, touch the text and get a graphic, or not. Oh, and the base DS is less than half the Kindle's cost. So I'll wait.

The other thing is a remark by Stanley Kaufman about Evelyn Waugh. He said that Waugh was such a stylist that he was conscious of the eventual shape of his paragraphs on the printed page. I'm not sure I want to see what they look like on a Kindle.

And I can't help remembering that I can walk into a Goodwill and find a paperback copy of "The Glass Key" or "Nostromo" for a dollar. They don't weigh much either.

Be careful of public domain versions of literature in translation. The translations are often old fashioned and terrible. Far better to look for a more recent translation that might be copyrighted.

A good example is any Russian literature. Most of the public domain translations are bad ones done by Constance Garnett around 1900. The recent translations by Pevear and Vololhonsky are vastly superior.

I hear your discontent but many of your issues are addressed by the Kindle DX - it displays charts, tables and pictures (albeit in B/W) beautifully. Pages are rendered in approximately the same size as a paper-based book. This being Mother Jones, of course other issues will be raised but really, you should give the DX a try before rushing to superficial judgement based on one model of the Kindle.

A serious question. Can you read your Kindle outdoors, the way you can with a book? I've tried taking my laptop outside to do work in the fresh air and visibility on the screen sucks. Has Kindle solved that problem or do you still have to be in deep shade to see anything?

I really dont understand why anyone would buy a Kindle when there are so many other cooler, better, non-drm solutions on the market.

My favorite is the Bookeen from a french company that is frequently on a backorder. It makes no sense to me why people would pay for an electronic copy of a book. Maybe if the electronic copy was included in the purchase price of the hard copy, that would be cool, otherwise just download the pdf. Not a lot different than going to borders and reading a couple of chapters before you put it back on the shelf.

How about eschewing Amazon altogether? Except as a source for researching a particular book - what it's about, what others thought of it. Then go down to your local independent book seller, if you're fortunate enough to have one. They probably won't have it on hand, but they'll be glad to order it for you. So it takes a couple of days. If you're like me, you'll have plenty of things to read in the interim.

@woofwoof I guess what I'm saying is that I don't understand what personal or customer need the kindle actually serves on a wide scale. I understand what it does for retailers since it gives them another platform to deliver instant content, and for publishers who can skip the physical costs of printing books. But beyond portability I don't (or didn't until I read some of the comments above) see what it does for readers/customers, and I still don't see much of anything that would make it a commanding choice for me. I do enjoy the form of books, but I'm not trying to fetishize their physical properties here, I just don't see them as a broken medium, tho I know that the economics fo modern publishing disagree with me here. I also don't see long form text as "content" that divorces so easily from the medium that has so far shaped its aesthetic principles.

Reading newspapers, blogs, etc. on some kind of smaller-than-a-laptop portable text browser does make sense to me, especially one where I could save individual articles. (can you do that?) Other than that though, i don't see why it would be preferable to read a long novel on a browser than on the page. Is it really just the portability? the instant gratification of shopping online and getting the "book" right in that moment? If it's much the latter, the nature of the transaction justifying a less pleasing (even slightly) experience, then it really seems like a bad trade off in terms of what we do with that "content": read it.

Now some of the reading I do I have to have printed matter in front of me for, since I take notes in the margins, underline, etc. And, if Kindles, etc. were super cheap I suppose I'd be happy to have one for newspapers and travel. But I'm curious: for those of you who do have them and use them for reading long form text, what is it in the experience of reading that makes it worthwhile, worth the money? Is it entirely a lifestyle thing- don't want an apartment full of books, don't want to mess with trips to the library, etc. or is there something I'm missing?

eBooks are the way of the future, but Amazon's approach is deficient.

Not only does Amazon itself have a model with a larger screen than the one Kevin seems to have -- but other companies have readers that support PDF (needed for good rendering of technical material) and other business models will be more flexible than Amazon's.

Barnes and Noble just announced a major entry into this market with support for a variety of devices including phones, laptops, and desktops, as well as for a new device from Plastic Logic that looks very interesting: standard paper size screen, unbreakable plastic, PDF support, etc. (see plasticlogic.com).

Besides being environmentally friendly, eBooks (with good reader software) make it easy to search, look up words in a dictionary (or on Google), underline and take notes (with the option of hiding them), copy/paste to other documents (subject to DRM), etc. There is no way this technology will not replace the dead tree version. If you are a student writing a paper on the Iliad, try finding all the places where Achilles (or Thersites) speaks by turning pages and scanning visually. Then use an electronic search. You will be at a serious disadvantage with the former. And when school is over, you can carry all your school books with you -- for the rest of your life -- stored in thin air rather than in dozens of heavy boxes.

Until the eBook reader technology matures, it is possible to use a laptop (or netbook) to read eBooks. PDFs can be rotated, so a netbook with the size and weight of a hardcover can be held like a book. And there is a wide choice of reader software for many different eBook formats.

I look at buying a kindle as being like buying a nice chair to read in. It's just a tool for reading.