Words of Redemption

So, after three months of patient waiting and reading through a pile of books I vowed to complete, I finally ordered myself a Kindle.

The bad news is that I didn’t exactly read all 16 books on my pre-Kindle reading list. I finished 12 and had 4 remaining when I decided to stop waiting and pull the trigger.

I cracked. I am weak. I’ve accepted this.

The good news is that I will still read those books. Seriously. I’m realizing that the Kindle can’t possibly be a complete replacement for all of my reading, mainly because not everything I want to read is available on the Kindle. Quite a few great books are, but many aren’t¹.

Besides, I expect that Sarah will want to read some books on the Kindle as well. So I’d better have some print books in reserve…

So fear not, I will finish that 800-page behemoth, “The Stories of John Cheever.” I’m on page 500 after all, it’s too late to stop now.

Plus, in the words of an old college friend, John Cheever “rocks my face off.”

Kindle - Early Impressions

It’s a fantastic device and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve only had it for about two weeks, but I really have no complaints². Here are some of the things I love about it:

• The display - They’ve finally nailed this technology. It really is just like reading print as far as I’m concerned. I’ve tried to read on my share of Tablet PCs and backlit displays, so trust me when I say that this is NOT like reading on a computer screen. It’s like reading a paperback, plain and simple. The way it should be. Think reading a book on an iPhone will be as pleasant? Doubtful.
• The built-in dictionary - Using the scroll-wheel on the device while reading a book allows you to look up a word or words on a given line using the built-in dictionary. In the three books I’ve read on the device so far, this feature has been invaluable. I’m padding my vocabulary with all kinds of polysyllabic words–like patois–which I plan to use to win friends and influence people. Look out world…
• Integrated search - Beyond the built-in dictionary, the Kindle also provides a built-in search feature that searches for a term of phrase across all the books on your device, the web and Wikipedia. This last part is my favorite and it’s added a depth and richness to my reading that I really, really love. Fellow Kindle enthusiast, Coloradan, and Twitter friend Len Edgerly wrote about this feature as well in his Kindle review. You were right, Len. That’s a killer feature.
• Highlighting and Note-taking - I like to highlight interesting passages in books. And I love to capture brilliant quotes and the thoughts of others much more intelligent than myself. The Kindle interface for note-taking and highlighting is good, not great. But what is great is that all of your notes and highlights are grouped in a single file that can be pulled from the device as a simple text file. That’s something I’ve needed for a while. Methinks I must use my programming chops to create a program to parse these files for import into other programs. Next step, Amazon? XML. I mean, c’mon, It’s all ball bearings3 these days.

All in all, I am very pleased with this purchase. It’s been a joy to read books on this device. highly recommended.

Is There Anything You Don’t Like?

Yes, as a matter of fact, there are a few things:

• The device is too expensive - Even at the current price, the Kindle is about $100-150 too much for all but the insane gadget-mongering early-adopter techno-geeks like myself and my friend Phil, who always gets all the cool stuff before I do. Don’t expect the Kindle to be a real killer app until they drop the price. Of course, if they drop the price while raising the total cost of ownership like Apple is doing with the 3G iPhone, they’ll have missed the point. Don’t do it Amazon. Don’t be that guy. Make the device cheaper, but keep Whispernet free.
• Search is manual - This is a nit-pick, but it bothers me. When using the search feature, you have to manually type in what you are searching for. Not a big deal most of the time, but I’d like to be able to select the search term similar to looking up a word in the dictionary. When I’m doing wikipedia searches on the crazy names and places Neil Gaiman uses in American Gods, it would be nice to just be able to select the word rather than typing it in slowly to make sure I get it right.
• The books are too expensive - Boy, I’m picky, huh? Seriously though. Amazon and Apple both are missing the boat in how they are pricing digital content these days. Apple was spot on with 99-cent songs. But 2-buck shows, 4-dollar movie rentals that expire in 24-hours once-started, and 10-dollar books are starting to smack of a digital-content marketplace that has allowed too much influence from commercial interests. Bottom line, I like that the books are cheaper than their in-print companions. There just aren’t quite cheap enough. That being said, there are plenty of great classics available in the 1-2 dollar range. So we got that going for us, which is nice.

So What’s Next?

I have this crazy idea that people actually want to know what I am reading. I call it crazy because it is probably more indulgent than true.

Of course, maybe I’m wrong and you want to know what I’m reading.

In any case, the pre-Kindle reading posts are going to morph into a “What’s on My Kindle” series. And rather than posting weekly, or every-other week, I’ll probably just do this one monthly.

Should be a similar format, but I’ll probably step out of form and comment on a few of the books I’m reading.

And despite the title, I expect that the post will cover all things I am reading, Kindle and non-Kindle forms alike.

In the meantime, why not treat yourself to a Kindle? You’ll be glad you did.

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1. especially books on writing. Many of those are still print-only [↩]
2. aside from the ones below, of course [↩]
3. and XML [↩]

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