Ebook reader thingies

Good Kindle video review here:

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Pig Cat said:
The only big positive for me would be if you could read a book and not know when it was going to end.
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Interesting point; Philip Larkin makes a similar one in his essay His Master's Voice against hearing/listening to a poem - you have no idea of the shape or size and so no way to pace yourself or anticipate the narrative arc. But a poem printed on a page sits before you in full view and you can navigate it as a whole.

Also, some forms (e.g. sonnets) are as much visual as anything else, not to mention enjambment and double line breaks (eg between stanzas).
 
Only 2 years late - well done Waterstones. Being as they are 83rd to market, they'll either have to haemorrhage cash to make it a cheap opportunity for the reader equipment or haemorrhage cash making the books cheap to take on the incumbent Kindle, Sony range and countless others already there.
 
I just don't see myself getting one of those things.....I just Love REAL Books.....Full stop......I've got hundreds of 'em covering just about everything..........Its very Cosy in my Art room where I can sit and read on a wild Winters day,surrounded by my books.....Don't think the electronic version would give me quite the same feel good factor somehow....

And I would hate to lose my local Library......We've had quite a few closures of the smaller branches' round and about........So we're doing the best we can to keep 'em open......
 
If your into reading the classics and older books I've found GOOGLE BOOKS very useful and FREE. you might want to bring up the site and read what's available before you buy ebooks.
Million Free Google Books in ePub - for Kindle - UPDATE4
Johnus
 
I put off buying an ereader for a long time due to in my head, me liking the tactile feeling of a book.

Got bought a kindle last year and it's brilliant, it was surprising how quickly that tactile feeling was forgotten all about, I'd say within a few chapters you'll forget a 'normal' book and the kindle will become the norm.

The kindle was the choice (the cheaper one) due to looks, connectivity, size, weight and price.

I like it that much after 6 months of being away and it being put through it's paces in pretty unfavourable conditions, I bought another to keep at home in good condition and will use the less pristine but still working great one for going away.

forget to mention, one of the features I really like about the kindle is the built in dictionary, I'm sure we all come across new words in a book and with this feature you highlight the word and it gives you the definition.

Not sure if other ereaders do this.
 
Well as you can read earlier in this very thread I was sceptical... but then I had an itch for a new toy, found that there was a conjunction of me having a rather attractive money off voucher, a pile of clubcard tokens and the double-your-money voucher in Tescos... so I acquired one.

It's not going to replace the dead tree stuff, but as I rattle through 2-3 books per week on average but I keep my eye on the free offers at Amazon and have built up quite a stockpile of things to read as well as the books that trickle through the letterbox.
 
I see my Kindle as an addition to my paper books, not something to replace them. It doesn't half save my dwindling bookcase space though! I also like the fact that there are so many cheap books from new or self-published authors as well as the normal-proced books from established names & publishers.

As for how they handle in sunlight, the eInk screen is just like paper so there's no glare or reflections. If you can read a paper book in the light, you can read a Kindle in it.

I love my Kindle - the freedom to carry so many books with me, or to pick up a new book from anywhere in seconds, is simply fantastic.
 
Well, from my vast experience of reading one book on my kindle so far, I can say that within a few pages I just got lost in the book, and ceased to be distracted by the fact that it was a 'device'. I like the not having to weigh it down with the pepper mill etc. whilst eating and it's handy in bed as well.....for reading.
The only gripe I have so far is that when you want to flick back to remind yourself of something you've read earlier, it's not as easy as with a real book. With a real book, for one thing, you often have a memory of which side of the book what you're looking for was on; so that can halve the search time. But with the kindle, I just don't even want to try - all the pages look identical, and also there are more pages, if you see what I mean......so trying to go back is difficult.
 
soapalchemist said:
Well, from my vast experience of reading one book on my kindle so far, I can say that within a few pages I just got lost in the book, and ceased to be distracted by the fact that it was a 'device'. I like the not having to weigh it down with the pepper mill etc. whilst eating and it's handy in bed as well.....for reading.
The only gripe I have so far is that when you want to flick back to remind yourself of something you've read earlier, it's not as easy as with a real book. With a real book, for one thing, you often have a memory of which side of the book what you're looking for was on; so that can halve the search time. But with the kindle, I just don't even want to try - all the pages look identical, and also there are more pages, if you see what I mean......so trying to go back is difficult.
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You've read my mind with these comments.
 
Just a further plug for the Kindle, while I was away recently I managed to crack the screen on mine, I rang Amazon to see about repair and they sent me a free replacement.

A friend also got his wet and had the same response from Amazon, he was also a good year out of warranty.
 
Well, having posted about how HWMOM bought me about 5 books (paper) and a kindle for Christmas......I went and bought another (paper) book myself. What can I say.....it was a hard back Joyce Carol Oates (probably my second favourite author after E. Annie Proulx)......and it was £3.99 in The Works!!! I felt better about this faux pas having checked that the kindle version costs more. What a find!!! I don't think I've ever found a book by a decent author who hasn't been dead for a long time in The Works.
But I promise all this paper thing is going to stop; I read The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry earlier this year, and now have 'The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (in paper form courtesy of HWMOM), and if that is as good as TSS I will definitely be buying others by him for The Device. I like him a lot; not often you find a male author who can create great female characters.
Vice versa may also be true.
 
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