Kindle: Incredible Reading Tool, Evil Book-Killer, or Overpriced Technology?
- by Renee Roberts
The electronic paper screen is easy to read.
There are currently over 100,000 books available for the Kindle, including most on the New York Times bestseller list. But you don't have to buy a book to check it out; the Kindle will download around 15 pp. from the beginning of the book for free and if you like it, you can then download the full text. If not, nothing lost.
Similarly, there are free newspaper subscriptions for the first month, automatically downloaded to the device. Subscriptions are also available from a selected number of international newspapers as well.
If you have files in MS Word (as well as images in standard file formats) you can upload them to Amazon from your computer and for a small fee, they will convert them to Kindle format for your device.
Kindle material is full-text searchable and you can go directly to specific articles or chapters using hyperlinks. Whenever you leave a book or magazine, Kindle keeps track of where you are in the text so that the next time you open up the file you are right where you left off. You can also mark the text and create blocks of material that are both noted and annotated and can eventually be uploaded to your computer.
For those interested in online blogs, subscriptions to some of these can also be created and automatically downloaded to the Kindle. If you are interested in publishing, you can easily create a file in Word or Adobe, send it to Amazon to Kindle-ize it, and then publish it to Amazon's Kindle store. This seems like a huge opportunity for legitimate publishing as well as pure trash.
From a reader's perspective, I find the screen very easy on the eyes, non-glare even in direct sunlight. If 200 titles directly on the Kindle do not suffice, inexpensive add-on memory is available.
I can readily see the Kindle in the hands of a student: instead of having to lug hundreds of pounds of books around, it is going to be a heck of a lot easier putting this small device in a backpack. It's also a real plus for people whose eyes are not what they used to be because no special editions of books are needed -- you can buy books at whatever size font and then use the device to enlarge the fonts to make them most comfortable.
Unlike a wireless computer, you do not have to locate a hot spot, as Amazon's Whispernet seems more than capable of sending and receiving wherever. And did I mention that there is no extra charge for accessing this network: access "comes with" the purchase of the device, as does unlimited storage for your purchases on Amazon's servers.
Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
Bonhams, Apr. 8: First report outside of the colonies of the American Revolution, from American accounts. Printed broadsheet, The London Evening-Post, May 30, 1775. $20,000 - $30,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: Joyce, James. The earliest typescript pages from Finnegans Wake ever to appear at auction, annotated by Joyce, 1923. $30,000 - $50,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: Joyce's Ulysses, 1923, one of only seven copies known, printed to replace copies destroyed in customs. $10,000 - $15,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: ATHANASIUS KIRCHER'S COPY, INSCRIBED. Saggi di naturali esperienze fatte nell' Accademia del Cimento, 1667. $2,000 - $3,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: Bernoulli's Ars conjectandi, 1713. "... first significant book on probability theory." $15,000 - $25,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: Aristotle's Politica. Oeconomica. 1469. The first printed work on political economy. $80,000 - $120,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: John Graunt's Natural and political observations...., 1662. The first printed work of epidemiology and demographics. $20,000 - $30,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: William Playfair's Commercial and Political Atlas, 1786. The first work to pictorially represent information in graphics. $15,000 - $25,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: Anson's A Voyage Round the World, 1748. THE J.R. ABBEY-LORD WARDINGTON COPY, BOUND BY JOHN BRINDLEY. $8,000 - $12,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: La Perouse's Voyage de La Perouse autour du monde..., 1797. LARGE FINE COPY IN ORIGINAL BOARDS. $8,000 - $12,000
Bonhams, Apr. 8: Charles Schulz original 8-panel Peanuts Sunday comic strip, 1992, pen and ink over pencil, featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Lucy as a psychiatrist. $20,000 - $30,000
![Dominic Winter, Apr. 9: Bible [English]. [The Bible and Holy Scriptures conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament, 1562]. £3,000-5,000](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/e47bb03e-3f3d-4f68-9e79-b0b2739ca87c.jpg "<b>Dominic Winter, Apr. 9:</b> Bible [English]. [<i>The Bible and Holy Scriptures conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament,</i> 1562]. £3,000-5,000")
