Hey everyone. After finishing last month’s “win a Kindle DX” contest, I wanted to share with you some of the great reviews about eBook reader we got as entries. These are all reviews from our site’s visitors which own an eBook reader.
Today we will post Donald Wallbaum’s article about eBook readers, which is genius written in my opinion:
“The original “Twilight Zone” – the one hosted by Rod Serling – had an episode in which, after a holocaust, a bookish man staggered out of his basement office to see nothing – no people, nothing.
Far from depressed, he viewed this as an opportunity to read every book he had never managed to read as he scratched away in his basement office, doing anonymous work for anonymous people for anonymous reasons.
Finally, all the books in the abandoned library were organized – by type, and order to be read. As he finally completed this organizational labor, his glasses fell off his face and broke.
If he had a Kindle, this would be no more than an irritation, for he would have been able to adjust the type size. And he would have avoided the issue entirely, since he would not have to organize books – since the Kindle doesn’t have an organizational system. Everything is dumped into one big pot of reading potential.
Here, then, is the key to the Kindle. It is a big pot of reading potential.
Reviews should review the product, discuss size, functionality, capacity, refresh rates, operating systems, user interface. All this is useful to a point. But the Kindle is the anti-tool. Like a shovel, its use is self-evident, and this is its brilliance.
On then to what one does with a Kindle – or any other eBook reader. Well, one reads books. Go to Amazon, and one-click your way to poverty. Yes, $9.99 for most books is not a lot of money. Do that ten times, and it is a lot of money. One-click can be your best friend or your worst enemy.
Like a Ferrari, a Kindle is just another piece of technology if you can’t afford to operate it.
Ahhh… welcome then to the world of public domain books. Thanks to a corps of dedicated, anonymous laborers, an amazing array of books have been converted to an eBook format that is supported by the Kindle.
My only pretention is to that of curiosity, but in the course of the few weeks I have had my Kindle 2, it has become the home to one Amazon-purchased book, but 40-odd freebies, ranging from 1930s pulp science fiction, to Gibbons “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”.
If I am not sure if I want to invest $9.99 in a book authors are now offering discounted copies of their labors for a buck or two. The idea is, take a $2 chance instead of a $10 regret, develop a following, and maybe the people will follow for higher-priced offerings later.
“The Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad is sharing memory space with Thucydides “History of the Peloponnesian War” and Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”. There is an 1860s treatise on the training and use of mules written by Harvey Riley, Superintendant of the Government Corral, and motivational reading courtesy of Nicolo Machiavelli’s “The Prince”.
All this in a package the size of a brochure for an ocean cruise.
Which would be a perfect thing to take my Kindle 2 on. And if I break my glasses, I can always increase the type size.”
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