Are E-Books Good for You?

I'd rather have a Nook.

I have to go with my experience... I dislike reading on a computer screen, however, I love reading on my Kindle II! I read faster on the Kindle than I do using a book (I have no idea why) and my comprehension is better, as well as retention.

Also, the Kindle II connects you to the internet using cellphone technology (3G), and it's completely free.

And Amazon gives deep discounts on all Kindle books - many are free!

I like to read, but I've been reluctant to try the kindle. I have a strong affection for books themselves. The only reason I could see getting me to make the leap is if you can look up words quickly in a book while you're reading it. That would be great for comprehension. One could also read books in other languages and be able to translate when you get stuck, which would really help with learning foreign languages.

Do you know if the kindle has any of these features?

Yes, if you have the network turned on you can hot link from a word or phrase to an online dictionary or Wikipedia. I wouldn't know how it works with foreign translations.

Hooker

Roger,

It appears the Kindle allows for word look up (see below). I am not aware of a translation feature. Maybe that will be in a future model.

From Amazon's site about the Kindle:

Built-in Dictionary

Never get caught without a dictionary. Kindle includes The New Oxford American Dictionary with over 250,000 entries and definitions, so you can seamlessly look up the meanings of words without interrupting your reading. Never fear a sesquipedalian word again—simply look it up as you go.

Wireless Access to Wikipedia

Kindle also includes free built-in access to the world's most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia—Wikipedia.org. With Kindle in hand, looking up people, places, events and more has never been easier. It gives whole new meaning to the phrase walking encyclopedia.

Cool. I'm not ready to spend $250 on it yet, but it's on my radar. Thanks.

You can either look up a word by going to search, which provides dictionary, Wikipedia, Google, the web, and some other places.

If you're reading, you just use the little joy-stick to move the cursor next to the word and the definition appears at the bottom of the screen. If you want more detail, press the Return key, which takes you to the full dictionary entry. To get back to where you were reading, you press the Back button, and you're where you were.

Oh, the Kindle II will also read "any" book to you - Sort of second generation Steven Hawking (man or woman). It will also play audio books from audible.com, and it's an MP3 player.

Like home work it can be good for you if you read it yourself...

Hi,

this reminds me (with some very unpleasant feeling) to Aldous Huxley:Brave New World.

Who is guaranteeing that some books will stay free?

Who is guaranteeing that no company nor government will falsify electronic data or transmitted "books"?

Do you really want to pay annually for any book you have? Why have an update?

RHABE

P.S. Vermin, please try to evaluate why you can read faster. Would be important to everybody!

Electronic memory modules will fit your future shoe-box home...

You don't have to pay annually for books, it's a one-time purchase - and if you don't turn cellular on, "they" can't touch the contents of your Kindle...

And you think that the internet isn't even easier to manipulate than a Kindle?!!!! If you were reading CR4 last night, NASA had to make a release saying that there's nothing particular about the year 2012 - This was in response to what is considered the first viral ad campaign being run by the makers of the upcoming movie 2012. Seems they're putting up supposedly "scientific" web sites that tout the reality of 2012.

OK. So why do I read faster? First, the black & white display is very easy on the eyes. You can alter the print size if you get caught without your reading glasses. Second, you see one page at a time, and you're not having to hang onto the rest of the book. Third, my eyes seem to scan the flat screen and nothing else. Instead of saying "OK. Gotta take care of that..." and putting the book down, I wind up saying "Just to the end of this paragraph..." and when I pull myself away, about five more pages have gone by. My eyes just scan across the text very quickly. I'd have to be tested to be any more specific than that.

So, there is one type of book that isn't the best to read on a Kindle - Very large, complicated, technical books. I have John Hecth's Laser Guidebook (1000+ pages) on my Kindle. I'll go to it to look up something particular, but if I had to refer to it a lot, I'd rather have the real book in front of me.

For some time now I have considered getting a Kindle. I like most everything about it. I travel frequently and am currently on a long term (15 month) assignment in South Korea. So dragging my books around with me is cumbersome. There are a few things that have kept me from buying:

1. Sharing books - While Kindle might make transporting numerous books easy, it doesn't allow you to share. Sure I can let someone else use my Kindle to read a book I found interesting....but then I am not able to proceed on to my next book.
2. Privatizing your library - If I do lend someone my Kindle....I'm not sure if there is a way to lock them out of other books I have. For instance, I might like my children to read a book that's appropriate for them, however, there are many sci-fi and mystery books that are not appropriate for an 8 year old (or a 14 year old for that matter). This feature may already exist, I just don't recall seeing it.
3. Loss of books - I believe Amazon will allow you to get them again. But what happens if in the next 5 years Amazon goes out of business?
4. Damage to Kindle - If my dog decides the Kindle looks tasty, sure I can go buy one. But if that happens after Amazon has gone out of business (in 2014), I am SOL and those thousands of books I have are no longer available to me unless the future's equivalent of eBay has one for sale and then I still have the problem of getting back to my library. I understand a similar thing can happen to a paper book (dog eating it). If it did, that's only a loss of a single book, not the entire library.

I admit the probability of a few of the above may not be high, but they do seem feasible to me. I'm not predicting Amazon will go belly up in 5 years, but it's not unheard of. Likewise accidents do happen. Granted a fire may break out and consume my existing library of paper books, but I believe that is far less likely than my dog eating it or it just wears out over time. Try getting a 10 year old laptop replaced. Sure you can buy a new one, but then you have to upgrade all your software to versions that run with the new machines OS or decide you really didn't need it.

I suppose one of the benefits of paying full price (if you want to call it that) for paper books is that it can be given away, sold, shared while maintaining possession and usage of the remainder of your library (unlike the book you read on your Kindle).

Re: 1), Barnes & Noble's Nook lets you do this.

I am not familiar with the Nook. I'll have to check it out.

see link in #1

Thanks for the link. I see it's not due to be out until November. Is your preference for the Nook based on what you have read? Or have you had experience with one? Any experience with a Kindle? I'd be interested in your comparison.

No first hand experience with either, just comparing specs.

Love my Kindle I for leisure reading, though I prefer books for technically related (especially computer) stuff.

That said, in response to your list, I get the majority of my leisure reading books off the net as freebies. I download them to my pc and upload them to the Kindle on the USB cable, and keep copies on the pc (which can be shared with other ebook readers). In that vein, I could care less if Amazon goes t*ts up, and there's thousands of classics available that will keep me occupied for years.

This methodology allows me to be more selective about what I actually keep on the Kindle so my book list isn't cumbersome to search thru. Also, there a neat free app for the pc that allows you to download, track and manage stuff there, and upload to the Kindle. The name escapes me at the moment but if I remember I'll mention it here.

I've only bought one book from Amazon but I do subscribe to the monthly Analog SF magazine.

Hooker

I wasn't aware of such capability (downloading books from another source to PC, then transferring it to the Kindle). Cool.

Thanks.

Life's a crap shoot! Hey, do you use Windows???

Yes, I do.

And you trust it with you're life, right?

Not a bit. But the point I was trying to make is that sure there are risks to both owning traditional books as well as a Kindle. But it seems to me that the probability of loosing every book in my traditional library would be much lower than loosing every book in an e-book library. In light of what was stated earlier about being able to keep a copy of my books on my PC, I may be willing to drop that aspect as an objection. Then we are still faced with changes in technology making the device not only obsolete, but also unservicable and/or unusable. Some of the advantages such as getting newspapers and magazines, downloading latests books, may all go away if and when Amazon disappears unless something else steps in that is compatible.

The way I look at risk is essentially by ranking possibilities by their probability (low=1 high=5) and by their consequence (financial consequence usually, but not always) and then multiplying the two rankings for each possibility. Then if the result is a 25, I'm not likely to want to opt for that possibility. If the result is a 1, then I am. With the Kindle I see the risk sort of in the middle which is why I am torn between getting one and not. To make matters worse, I don't want the $299 version...I am more interested in the larger screened version which is still around $400 I think.

OK. I think the issue here is that you need to think more about what you're going to be holding on your Kindle (if you get one). You don't put first-editions on a Kindle. If you're into book collecting or have a favorite writer and want first-editions, you'll collect them as real books. If you're into coffee table books, the Kindle is not the platform, either. You could have a Gutenberg Bible on your Kindle, but what's the point!

The Kindle is more for recreational reading, technical stuff of shorter length, magazines, newspapers, blogs... That sort of stuff. I was never an ubber-reader, but I find myself leaving the TV off, and reading something on my Kindle instead - and enjoying it a lot more than the tube. Also, it allows me to switch to something I'm up for reading without getting off my ass. For example, I'm currently reading David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest." A really hard read. However, if I'm just not up for Wallace, I can push a button and switch to something a lot lighter, like The Worm Ouroboros, by E.R. Eddison.

The Kindle is not intended to replace every book in the world, and I'm guessing that most people that own a Kindle could lose their entire Kindle library and not shed a tear. So, if you don't read for the pleasure of it, then the Kindle ain't for you.

By the way, the Gutenberg Project has about a million titles on line (and growing), ready for free download.

I see your point. I'm not into first edition collecting or anything like that. I just rarely get rid of a book on purpose. I have hundreds of sci-fi books that I have accumulated over the years. Even though I rarely go back and re-read them, I still hold onto them. Probably some unfounded suppressed fear started back in my youth. But I do lend them out from time to time....and loose no sleep if they are not returned. I am rapidly talking myself into buy one (or something similar) as I do a large amount of reading and I just noticed Amazon has Dan Brown's latest available for the Kindle for only $9.99.

Yep! That's what the Kindle is for... Kind of a replacement for the paperback. Even if you can't directly lend them out. I've found that if I say, "Here! Read this, you'll really like it!" ultimately they never get read. If I say, "Have you read XXX's latest..." If the friend is interested, he/she will spring for it themselves.

Also, gotta love that discount!!!

Definitely! The one place where I read the most is on vacations, and I take at least 2-3 books with me. And even if I love the smell of old books I grew up with, its no match against the possibility of not having to carry all that paper in my luggage!

Plus, doesn't that count for saving trees?

I would prefer a paper library.

It has a reality and ease of handling that can't be matched by current electronics.

But I also need a portable library, and I don't want to pay for the space required to store or move a paper library.

So my paper library is small and my electronic library is quite vast.

If you include the whole internet in my electronic library, then there is no way a paper library could rival it for the amount of data available.