Re. kindling

    It's just over a year since I got my Kindle, and with a new model being launched, I thought I'd revisit the subject of e-readers. I love my device, and although so much of what I read comes to me in paper form, I've certainly taken to using the Kindle as well, so I'll usually have a 'real' book and an electronic one on the go together. I've just finished Lyndall Gordon's Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds, the first biography I've read on it, and now I've started some short stories, Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner by Diane Meier, but whether long books or short ones, fiction or non-fiction, I so enjoy using the various functions such as the built-in dictionary and search facility, bookmarks, highlighting text and making notes - all of which you can also do on your computer with the free app, something I find very handy. I'd be interested to try out the virtual keyboard on the new Kindle (scroll down here to see it), though I manage well with the button one on mine. 

    On my recent trip to London I had the Kindle in my handbag all the time, and I read from it on both longish train journeys. It's easy to use and navigate around a book, you can adjust the text size to suit yourself so it's comfortable on the eye and - being light, even with the cover - in the hand. Then there's the magic element in that a book will arrive on the device and be there to read within seconds of pressing the 'buy' button, so in terms of instant gratification, it's quite something!*

    What's your experience of this or any other e-reader? Have you had one since they became available, or are you a recent convert? Do you use them mainly when travelling, or any time? Do you have any gripes or grumbles with them, or are you - like me - very happy to use one in addition to physical books?

 

*By the way, as the Book Group is to be reading Donna Tartt's The Secret History soon, you may like to know that her second novel The Little Friend has just been released as an e-book.

Comments

[Susie Vereker]

Yes, I absolutely love the Kindle though have never bookmarked or underlined anything. One great asset is that, unless the Kindle runs out of battery at the wrong moment (easy to avoid this), one will always have something to read. But I prefer paper for complicated books.

[B R Wombat]

As may be obvious from my past comments, I adore my Kindle for all the reasons that Cornflower has stated. I"ve had mine for just over a year too and find it a boon and a blessing and so easy to read in bed (my favourite reading place) rather than struggle with a real book. But I do agree with Susie that complicated books are still easier as a real book - when I have to flick back and forth, I find it much easier with a "hands-on, dead tree" book.

[GeraniumCat]

I got my Kindle at more or less the same time as you did, and haven't looked back since. For complete relaxation, at home, I like a real book, but when I'm away from home my lovely Quoodle is fine, I just accept that in a hotel or on the train, that's how I'm going to read. Like you, I usually have a book on the Kindle and an old-fashioned one on the go at once now (or, as currently, a one fiction, one non-fiction on Kindle, and one of each on paper); I do prefer complicated books on paper still, but I like all the additional extras of reading an e-book: the highlighting, and the instant download (which I have to work very hard at resisting!)

My bedtime routine is now to read on Kindle for a while, and then to swap to a "real" book for the last, falling asleep bit. And if I read during the night, it's a real book. The Kindle is wonderful for arthritic hands, though!

Oh, and it's brilliant for eating out on your own - gone are the days of struggling to prop a book up, keep pages open with the cruet, or to eat one-handed so that you can hold a recalcitrant paperback.

[jodi]

I spent the last two weekends being the anchor on the ladder while my husband painted the peak and second story of our house. The kindle worked great for it. A lot easier than the library book that I tried. I used it yesterday to read during intermission at a concert. I have used it on trips also. I agree with the others about having a real book in hand for a complex read.

[Jo]

I have had mine for about 10 months now and I am of the have a book on the go on there and one 'real' book. Sometimes, I do not pick my kindle up for days and plough all the paperbacks then sometimes, I just seem to read from my kindle.

It is great for reading whilst eating, especially at work, trying to eat, cut salad and hold a book was becoming slightly irksome. But with a big cup of tea or coffee and a cake then it has to be an actual book. Strange.

As for not buying 'real' books, looking at my shelves I can say, the kindle has made no affect whatsoever! I seem to have settled into a routine of using the kindle whenever it suits me and I am content that I am getting my monies worth.

Look forward to hearing what others say.

[Dark Puss]

I wouldn't wish to use the "normal" Kindle which is why I have the DX version (I seem to be the only person in the UK with it!). I have no particular desire to read novels on it (and yes I do have some on mine), but the DX is excellent for the large sheaves of documents I get at work in advance of meetings. The DX size is absolutely critical for reading pdf files of papers as you really can read a whole page at a time. Having the Kindle has had no effect whatsoever on my book purchasing, I stopped a few years ago and it hasn't reduced that (or increased it!). On long train journeys (I went to Sheffield and back today) I take my laptop and work away at optical design (Zemax EE), or statistical analysis (R) etc. and thus I don't take my Kindle off-site as it were.

[Alison At BrocanteHome]

I absolutely adore my Kindle but I do think it has made my reading life a little more erratic than it used to be... having all those books in my hand makes it easier for me to chop and change my reading matter and muddle my brain in the process!

Thank heavens then my book thrifting will never come to a stop so there is always a battered Virago at hand or the latest in a long series of vintage treasures to be read the old fashioned way...

[Dabarai]

My boyfriend bought me Kindle as a present last week and I think he is more interested in in then me... So far I have only downloaded some free books on it and bought one Agatha Christie... I have so many paper books to read that I simply do not feel the appeal. Also, just went to the library and borrow some more books. Such a pity I cannot do it with ebooks...

I feel a bit guilty that I didn't start using kindle straight away, Do not my bf to feel like he spent money on something I am not enjoying, but honestly, I would rather get some more real books instead...

[Anji]

I have had my kindle for just over a year. Orignally I wasn't keen, or saw a need to have one, but then my birthday rolled around and my husband brought me a kindle. I have been impressed and completely understand now what my friends have been raving about. I love having a book shop at my finger tips. I am sure that I am not really using all the features but it is still early days yet. I still buy books and I go to the library too.

[Michel]

I bought the Barnes and Noble Nook about a year ago and loved it for reading on the go....any time I had to wait and especially for travel. Then I bought the IPad 2 and my Nook has been abandoned. My B&N library and my IPad are are compatable so nothing lost there. I love the larger screen and because it is back lit I can read in the dark....which means that I can be outside at night in lovely weather on my porch reading away. Real books, though, remain my passion. I do find that I read much faster on my Ereader....does anyone else? I wonder if it is because I read less complicated books there. No matter. I LOVE that we live in a time where we have so many choices in the way books and "printed" materials are delivered.

t
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[Harriet]

Sounds like I am the only person in the world who has not got a Kindle. I am resisting like mad, which you could see as particularly illogical as I do sometimes read books on my iphone. On the other hand, if I didn't have an iphone perhaps I'd be keener to get a Kindle. I just love printed books so much and can't bear to think that one day soon they will be a thing of the past, so perhaps I'm just an old fogey trying singlehandedly to hold back the inevitable march of progress.

[Dark Puss]

An old fogey? I don't think so; have you changed since I last met you? I do have a Kindle, but so far have not been much motivated to read any novels on it so actually we have the same response in that respect. Of course perhaps that means I am an old fogey too!

Morgana's Cat

[LizF]

I haven't got a Kindle as yet although my children keep asking me if I want one as a joint present from them for Christmas.
I'm a bit torn really because on the one hand I have a huge collection of unread books at home and keep feeling that I really should make inroads on them before I even think of getting something which will make me acquire even more reading matter. On the other hand,however, I do want to read Linda Gillard's two newest books and a Kindle would be the only way I could do that.

[Sandy]

I love my Kindle. It's wonderful for books that would otherwise be too heavy & thick to be comfy in bed! And .. the reading light is shielded by the cover so as not to disturb my other half! It's perfect for Caravanning, taking up hardly any room.

Instant arrival of the next volume in a series is gratifying and can be done even on the caravan site (!)and the price savings help you forget how much it cost ikn the first place!

One downside is that if you lend the book to anyone, then you have lost your Kindle until it is returned. I realise that for authors, this is great (I am a bad person to be lending books) - but for my friends it is not so good, since they dont prize my Kindle from me with ease.

As BR Wombat says, books that you flick back & forward dont work so well and illustrations are not so good. But overall it has added to my reading enjoyment immensely.

[Linda Gillard]

You don't have to have a Kindle, Liz. If you're desperate, you can read my latest books on your PC, Mac or other device by downloading the free Kindle app. (But this might be a case of the cure being worse than the disease.)

I was a Kindle-doubter who only bought one because I needed to know what my readers were going to be faced with. But now I'm a total convert, mainly because I read so much faster on the Kindle. I don't know why, unless it's the larger font or possibly the way I get a bit compulsive about pressing the page-turn button.

I adore the free sample download. That has saved me a fortune and taught me a lot about how to begin a story. (There's not much that I sample that I then go on to order. All this reminds me of the good old days when those new-fangled VCRs allowed us to record TV progs to watch later. People predicted we'd watch much more TV, but we all found we watched less because the VCR gave us the freedom to be selective.)

As an author I love my Kindle because it has reinforced for me, in a way I could not possibly have imagined, the primacy of the story. When you switch on your Kindle to read a downloaded book, there's no hype, no synopsis on the back cover to remind you why you downloaded and there's no retro endpapers or creamy quality paper to beguile. It's just someone telling a tale and if they don't tell it well, you'll switch off.

This is reading (and writing) stripped down to the exhilarating basics. So as reader & writer, I say hooray for Kindle.

[Deirdre]

It's interesting to read Linda Gillard's view. I had not thought of the Kindle from the perspective of the author. "This is reading [..] stripped down to the exhilarating basics" - of course! It is so important to tell a good story as it is often easy to be caught up in the hype on the back cover (and front) and the paper texture etc. So, I am not yet a Kindle reader but I'm close. I "fly home" sometimes and this summer my suitcase was so heavy because of the number of books I had packed; a Kindle would have made so much more sense!

[Janice]

I resisted buying my Kindle for a long long time, but then Linda Gillard's book came up and only available as an e-book. So I was hooked and have enjoyed it immensely since then - best there is for reading in bed

I wrote a bit about it on my blog.

http://blogdelivre.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html

[Vivienne]

Very interesting to read all the above comments. I bought a Kindle some weeks ago and have yet to use it. I specifically bought it for holiday reading purposes, I usually take half a dozen books with me, weighing a ton! I am away next week so will be 'trying it out'. Judging from the majority of the comments, I too, will be hooked.

[Andy]

Well, I'm also a bit of a convert to the Kindle 3 (Wi-Fi). I still read real books - I've got so many waiting to be read - but most of my recent purchases have been eBooks.

I like the 'new book' experience of reading on my Kindle. No more poor quality, small print editions. No more faded, written in, bent spined second-hand books either.

I have to say those that said illustrations still suit real books are right. For example Empire of the Skies (photos in the the centre), The Riddle of the Sands (maps and charts) and Michael McIntyre's autobiography Life and Laughing (photos in text).

One final (good) point: when I'm on a Kindle I'm lost in reading a book. But when I'm on my phone/laptop I'm getting texts, emails, checking web sites, etc and it's all too easy to break the spell...

[Simon T]

Far from the last, Harriet, I am not even resisting because I'm not remotely tempted! That's not quite true - authors like Linda Gillard, who have only released e-editions of their latest books, make me momentarily wish I had Kindle. But in general I stand by my belief that it would diminish the reading experience for me far too much.

[Simon T]

Ah, Linda, your reply makes me all the more against Kindles! I would love to read your novels on one (still haven't been able to bring myself to read on a PC) but removing the beauty of a book doesn't strike me as an advantage - because I don't want to separate writing and container completely. It would highlight the defects of a story which might escape attention in a beautiful edition, but I don't think it could ever make a great story better. And so it seems win-win for traditional books!

[Harriet]

Yes -- thanks for the support! Actually Simon I have read Linda's books by downloading the Kindle software free onto my computer and then reading them on there. Not ideal but certainly feasible.

[oxslip]

I definitely have a foot in both camps, will surely get a Kindle of my own before too long and continue to buy books

[Linda Gillard]

You've misunderstood me, Simon. I don't claim the Kindle improves a good book, merely that it has the potential for exposing the shortcomings of a poor one. (A Rembrandt is a Rembrandt, however it's framed and wherever it's hung.)

When you refer to "the beauty of a book" you're referring to book-as-artefact, which can be a very lovely thing (especially as supplied by the Folio Society or Persephone) but I was talking about books as texts. It's possible to enjoy a book-text without owning it in a fine edition. The Kindle is perfect for this purpose. It will never appeal to a bibliophile like yourself, but it has made a lot of story-lovers very happy.

Btw my offer still stands to send you print-outs of my new novels for review, but I'm afraid I can only offer Sainsbury's Basic A4. ;-)

[Janet]

I bought a Kindle earlier this year, so far have read only a few books on it. I bought it because I didn't want to take several paperbacks away with me, especially if it was a library copy of a bookclub read. I feel that I read the story faster on Kindle, as there is no distraction from the book as artefact - each actual book is nearly always slightly different from the previous one read, whereas the Kindle is always the same as an artefact.I personally don't think the end of the book has arrived yet, I have several books on my shelves which are over two hundred years old, lots of over one hundred years. I seem to remember being told at library school about 40 years ago that the end of the book was nigh, but more and more are produced each year.

[LizF]

Hi Linda
I don't think I could bear to read an entire book sitting at a computer - it seems wrong somehow and I'm sure it would give me a headache!

I probably will get a Kindle - it's not the device I object to, it's the fact that having one will make it far too easy to acquire other books - instant reading gratification would too much temptation for me and I have so many of the traditional type of book to read!
Your comment about VCR reminds me that I greatly shocked my 17 year old daughter the other day when I had to tell her that when I was her age,in the dim and distant mid-70's, if you wanted to watch a TV programme you had to stay in and watch it because VCR's simply didn't exist (although I suppose that they must have been in development).
She found it really hard to believe that a technology that she sees as archaic was something that was new in my lifetime!

[Linda Gillard]

Console yourself, Liz, with the thought that only Amazon and you know how many books you have on your Kindle. ;-)

[Laura]

I've used a Kindle for a while now (same model as Cornflower's) but just this week I bought the new Sony Touch Reader (PRS-T1). It is much lighter and more ergonomic than the Kindle and the touch capability means there is no keyboard or controller pad at the bottom. Still has Wi-Fi and dictionaries galore and I can now borrow/download ePubs from my local libary which is fantastic. I'll probably keep the Kindle for now even though I've only purchased a couple of Kindle books. The new Kindle Touch looks good but it is not available outside the US yet.

[Dark Puss]

Dear LizF, the first real "home" VCR (Philip N5100) was I think sold in the UK around 1972. Sony introduced Betmax in 1975 and JVC VHS (the eventual format wars winner) in 1976.

[Dark Puss]

Laura, the ability to handwrite notes looks interesting. Screen size is a little small for my needs I fear, but it would be interesting to hear your view of reading documents with figures/graphs in them. How would you rate the pdf reader?

[Lyn]

I've had a common-or-garden generic brand e-reader for almost a year now & I love it. It doesn't have any bells & whistles, moving forward & back in a book is a bit clunky but I don't mind. It's allowed me to read lots of out of print 19th & early 20th century books for free. I have over 120 books on it (another tbr shelf only it doesn't take up any space) & have only paid for 3 (I wanted to see if I could work out how to buy & download from a bookshop). I've been able to read all the books chosen by my 19th century bookgroup have chosen because they're always available from Gutenberg. And I have an aversion to smelly second-hand books so for me it's either new or e-book. I still read more paper books though just because I have more of them & I'm still buying & borrowing them but I enjoy my e-reader & wouldn't be without it.

[Laura]

I don't really use an ereader for pdfs.. too much zooming and mucking around :)

[Dark Puss]

Laura, thank you for replying. That comment tends to confirm why I bought the Kindle DX!

[LizF]

Thanks for that Dark Puss - we were never the most technologically advanced family so it definitely passed us by! I didn't actually own a video player until the 1980's and got one so my elder children could watch the video tapes they had been given as presents!

I remember my brother in law having both a betamax and a VHS and being rather put out when they stopped making the former because he thought it was better.