The Kindle Touch



photo from Amazon.com



For Christmas, my amazing sister purchased the Kindle Touch for me.  She knew that I'd been looking over e-readers and hadn't committed to one yet.  I'd put the Kindle on my Amazon wish list, for obvious reasons, and with the addition of using the Kindle with my public library I was perfectly happy with my selection.  I honestly didn't expect to receive it as a gift, since everyone said they were scaling back this year, and have continued to be delightfully surprised with its features.

1) It is incredibly easy to get books.  Perhaps a little too easy.  I've already purchased 5 e-books in the last two weeks, two of which I already own in regular book form.

2) Portability is a key factor.  I downloaded a copy of Gone with the Wind so I could resume my chapter by chapter posts on here.  There really isn't a "I forgot to bring x, y, or z book" excuse anymore as long as you remember to bring the Kindle itself.

3) Highlighting passages and posting to social media.  I'm re-reading my favorite book, A Passage to India by E.M Forster, and can post my favorite quotes for my friends to see and discuss as I am reading the book.  I don't have to remember to write it down and post it later, which inevitably never happens.  I wonder if there is a way to post to Blogger from the device...

4) Amazon allows Prime members to borrow one book a month for free.  As I am already an Amazon Prime member for the TV show and shipping benefit, this works out well for me.

5) Library Books - I have not yet attempted to use this feature, but I am looking forward to utilizing my local library once again.  I had stopped because I honestly never found the time to go pick out books and then make sure I returned them on time.  Working two jobs kind of puts a kink in one's free time.  So as much as I enjoyed supporting my local library with my late fees, it really wasn't beneficial for me.  But now....

And there are other features I haven't tried, like the text-to-speech or the MP3 capability.  But I am sure they are equally as amazing.

The All-New Nook

We interrupt Gone With the Wind for this very special news:

Well, Barnes and Noble has done it.  They've given me a reason to buy their product over the Kindle.  In my comparison of the NOOK and Kindle in previous entries , both here and in my 30th Year Blog, I liked the NOOK and all it had to offer except for that little itty bitty touch screen at the bottom.  I have said, on previous occasions, that if they offered an e-ink display with full touch screen technology it would make up my mind.

And now, they've introduced the All-New NOOK with the e-ink display and fully integrated touch screen.  For $139.

I really liked the global 3G wireless offered by Kindle, but I failed to commit to it before my Ireland trip and now there is very little reason for me to get it.  But this NOOK does offer the same wi-fi access as the basic Kindle with the added benefit of reading ePub documents which would allow me to borrow books from a library or import publications from other vendors.  (Though, I hear Amazon is going to offer the Kindle 3G at a discount with special offers and the really appealing part is that the 3G would really make it like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.)

So many things to consider.  But it will depend on the actual NOOK product.  I intend to check it out in the stores as soon as possible and if I like the design and interface, I might just cave.  But what will Amazon answer back with in their next generation Kindle?

One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde

Budgetary overruns almost buried the remaking before the planning stage, until relief came from an unexpected quarter. A spate of dodgy accounting practices in the Outland necessitated a new genre in Fiction: Creative Accountancy. Shunned by many as `not a proper genre at all,' the members' skills at turning thin air into billion-dollar profits were suddenly of huge use, and the remaking went ahead as planned. Enron may have been a pit of vipers in the Outland, but they quite literally saved the BookWorld.

Bradshaw's BookWorld Companion (16th edition)



from http://www.jasperfforde.com/



When I first received this book in the mail, from Amazon of course, I was excited to see a map drawn on the first few pages.  Every since I read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, it's been one of my favorite things to see in a book.  I love to compare the location of things as I am reading through the story.  I have to admit I was somewhat confused by the map in this novel since readers of the series know that the layout of bookworld isn't entirely known to the reader or its inhabitants.  After reading the first few chapters I discovered the reason:  Bookworld was being reorganized to more closely resemble the Outland, or Real World.

Told from the point of view of the Written Thursday, what I really like about this novel is that Fforde is not afraid to completely change what we know about this world he's created.  He starts out with a different Thursday as his main character then reshapes the Bookworld.  It really keeps a reader on his or her toes and challenges what we have come to expect from this series.  I feel like I should have gone back and read First Among Sequels before diving into One of Our Thursdays is Missing as a few plot points from the previous novel were fuzzy and I was looking for answers in the new one.  This is clearly my own memory fault and not that of the author's.

Undoubtedly, this is still one of my favorite series and I highly recommend it to anyone.  The basic premise of the series is a character who lives in an alternate-reality Swindon, UK and has the ability to jump into novels and interact with the characters as if they were actors in a play.  Using Written Thursday as the POV on this one allows the reader to learn a little bit more about what it means to be a book character in the Nextian Universe.  Fforde pulls in a lot of our current events into this narrative and even touches on what the invention of e-readers has done to their environment. 

My other favorite quote from the book:

This was the annoying side of the feedback loop; irrespective of how she had once looked or even wanted to look, [the lady of shallot] was now a pre-raphaelite beauty... She wasn't the only one to be physically morphed by reader expectation....Harry Potter was seriously pissed off that he'd have to spend the rest of his life looking like Daniel Radcliffe.

To Kindle, or not to Kindle?

For some strange reason I have gotten it into my head that I want an e-reader.  I don't know why exactly as I am a pretty hard-core physical book person.  (Bad days can be better with a simple trip to the library or bookstore.  Something about the smell just eases any tension.)  It might have something to do with the XKCD Comic, actually.  Ever since they linked it to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I've been a little obsessed with the idea.  Then, with my plans to travel to Europe in the near future, I have these wonderful visions of how useful it will be. 

Imagine standing by an old church on a street in London, for example.  The sign says, Temple Church, but you've never seen/read the DaVinci Code and have no idea what it is.  Pull out the Kindle, go to the search feature and type in Temple Church on the "use Wikipedia" feature and Voila!  All the information that public forum of knowledge has to offer on Temple Church, PLUS links to other interesting sites in the area.  Not to mention, one could download a travel guide (if one is offered on Amazon) as well as any books to read on the journey.

And yet, I went to Target and I held a Kindle in my hands.  I seriously thought about buying the 3G version, but I just couldn't get excited about it.  I went to Barnes & Noble and looked at their Nook.  I found the touch screen at the bottom neat but not as easy to use as I would like.  If there is touch screen, I want to be able to touch the whole screen not just part of it and the 5-way rocker button on the Kindle is more natural to me for some reason.  Now the Nook Color, could be be more natural to me than the 5-way rocker button but it's not exactly in my price range.  I held the Nook in my hands and I couldn't get excited about it.  The ideas of what I could do with either device, see Temple Church above, are exciting.  But the actual device itself did not induce the same impulse-buy feeling I get when I see a new book.  Still, I have plenty of time before I take my European Vacation and that should give me time to make up my mind about whether or not to get one.