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Tuesday, 13 December 2011

Kindle-mass Comes Early

Work, domestic concerns and a resumption of editorial duties for the SFSFW's Ragnarok have resulted my fingers not touching a paintbrush for over a month now which is a lamentable state of affairs and one I intend to correct later this week. In the meantime SWMBO gave me a £15 Tesco clubcard voucher that was valid on one day only last week so I toddled down Tesco Homeplus to have a look at the iPads which I did but am still undecided on a whole host of issues, 3G or Wi-Fi? 16GB or 64GB? Even white or black? (honestly, white MacBook, black iPod - doesn't help!).

Anyway feeling £15 off something electronic was too good a voucher to waste I decided to treat myself to the bottom of the range 4th generation Kindle working on the basis that whilst some people think they are either/or devices I regard them as totally diverse concepts. So £74 lighter I now own a Kindle  that I am finding to be a wonderful little device and encouraging me to read more non-fiction than I have for a while.

The main draw is storage. I've just picked up both Colin Smith's England's Last War Against France and Keith Jeffrey's MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949 which would stretch the limited bookshelf space available (ok, being honest the non-existent available space there is a lot of double racking and piling on top going on here in Blease Towers...). That I can back them up and sync them on my MacBook (and smartphone if I had one), can annotate books and carry a library in a A5 piece of plastic is very attractive, so much I can considering a serious book cull and ebook purchase splurge).

Will I give up "real" books? No of course not, there is still 'something; about them and from a Kindle point of view they are really only good for text rather than pictures but there is a convenience factor that any serious reader cannot ignore (and for a wargamer down the club you can have your library with you to make sure your facts are correct when you are challenged!)
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4 comments:

  1. David Crook13 December 2011 at 19:02

    Hi Steve,

    I am really pleased with my Sony ebook and they are so good for all of those old titles you would never get the chance to read otherwise.

    I agree with the 'real books' comment as well!

    All the best,

    DC

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  2. Ruaridh13 December 2011 at 20:00

    I love my Kindle. The ability to carry around so many books with ease is most excellent, but it will never supplant my need to be surrounded by real books. The kindle lacks the tactile and olfactory elements of reading, even when, as I did, you make a case for it from an old book. That gets you part way there but not enough to make me give up books forever. What I have started to do is read the ephemeral rubbish on the kindle and spend my hard-earned dosh on the books that I know I shall want to return to for research purposes. Where some of those books are available in both formats, I have actually bought both, so that I can take them with me but still have the hardcopy for ease of reference.

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  3. Anibal Invictus13 December 2011 at 20:51

    I have a Kindle and an Ipad too. Absolutely complementary and in fact I prefer reading in Kindle (much lighter and also better for my eyes) and frankly I don't miss much the paper editions; furthermore, as I live in Spain it's an incredable means to have foreign books available in minutes instead of weeks!!!. I use Ipad extensively for work related materials.

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  4. Tony16 December 2011 at 14:50

    So you have moved to the dark side!

    Sue (my Wife) has a Kindle and loves it. While I still stick to my paper books. The Ludite that I am.

    Earlier this year my Daughter bought a Kindle so she didn't have to transport hundreds of books to Thailand. Even she (a true book-aholic) finds the Kindle to be a great boon.

    Finally - you are back as editor of Ragnarok?

    Good luck.

    Tony
    http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/

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