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Stephen Lodge
Wisdom Member
Post Number: 604
Registered: 06-2004

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Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 03:51 am:

What do you think?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071119/ap_on_hi_te/amazon_e_book_reader_9

http://www.stephenlodge.com
Novels by Stephen Lodge:
"Charley Sunday's Texas Outfit!"
"Nickel-Plated Dream"
"Shadows of Eagles"

Frank Mazur
Wandering Member
Post Number: 227
Registered: 02-2005

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Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 04:57 am:

Sony has reduced the price of its own by a hundred bucks in anticipation of the Kindle. I wish there was a program or offering by some enterprising outlet that would let you use one of these for about a month or two without immediately buying. On the one hand, the new technology is always interesting and even dazzling, and it usually offers fresh possibilities. But on the other, especially when it comes to reading material, books especially, there are some elements that aren't covered. For instance, if e-readers eventually saturate the industry, are bookstores and the wonderful ambience they provide at an end? And a very personal thing for me would be the absence of book paper and its distinctly compressed aroma. What I'm saying is, I love to stick my schnozz into an open book and inhale that paper and ink fragrance, particularly in new hardbacks.

To all on the board: let us know if you're asking for one for Christmas.

3-dollar gas. Writers' strike. Read a great book by F. E. Mazur.

SPINE
THE BUCKSELLER
"A BIGGER CASE"

Pacwriter
Unity Member
Post Number: 3085
Registered: 04-2002

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Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 05:44 am:

the lunch counter at woolworths with cokes mixed from syrup - long gone
The drugstore on main street with the huge magazine rack - long gone
the bakery on the corner that you could smell all over town and sold a dozen day old cookies to kids for a nickel - long long gone

the wonderful ambiance of a bookstore - on the way out

A hand-held book will disappear in time. According to an article in yesterday's news only old people and teens are buying and reading books. Those younger than teen and not ancient do not read and do not buy.

Save a tree, buy an e-reader ---- slit my wrists

http://www.perrycomer.com

Steven Lee Harris
Awareness Member
Post Number: 47
Registered: 09-2007

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Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 09:42 am:

It is a sad day. Much like Frank, I enjoy few things in life more than the smell of a book (new or used makes no difference to me). I enjoy the feel of the pages on my fingertips, and (in the case of older books) the history they have survived.
One of my favorites was "The nature and need of loyalty" by Royce. The smell of the aged paper and binding, the rough texture of the paper, and the years it has endured only to land in my hands. It is a treasure I will cherish until the day I die. I wonder if future generations will say the same of E-Books?

Claudia Turner VanLydegraf
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number: 3158
Registered: 06-2002

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Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 01:01 pm:

I think E-Books and similar things will go the way of the email, into the email folder to be stored and forgotten about, unless someone calls up a need to go back and look foor it. But, and this is the big but.... it will always remain sort of a chore to read, as reading on the puter or any other such objects can't be done in all places at all times, where an actual book can and does transcend any locale and any time with equal effectiveness and ability. You have to either have a power source, a battery of some sort or an electrical outlet and "machine" capabilities to have a reader, no matter how sophisticated, there still has to be a power source and if all power is gone, you have nothing but a blank screen, whereas, with a book, you can see the print no matter what the power source is doing, even if you don't have a power source, such as when you might be out on a dock of a lake, under the blazing sun, laying on a towel, with an e-reader, you would still need that power source, but a book, all you have to do is open the page and presto!!! you have print that you can see that makes up words that makes your brain form sentences and a story unfolds. No power source other than your printed page and your brain.....

Although, e-readers and going to be around, and will be popular to many, I don't think that they will ever replace a book. Many children are growing up in the computer generation and will always be accustomed to e-readers as a sort of extension to anything eles that is done on the computer, but will find that they are unwieldly and cumbersome in some places and under certain conditions where a book will fit in perfectly, as with all the other new things, but a book will always hold a special appeal to those of us who have always known them as friends.

Claudia
MINDSIGHT MODERATOR

Pacwriter
Unity Member
Post Number: 3086
Registered: 04-2002

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Votes: 0 (Vote!)

Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 01:26 pm:

Claudia, we like our friends, are dying. Books will pass into the forgotten just as we will. It is sad and I don't mean to bring on depression but the world in twenty years will have books only in libraries.

The Amazon e-book reader has a battery life of 30 hours on one charge.

Transitor radios are gone as are cassette recorders, record players, phones with dials, typewriters etc.

Here is where I think things are going - pop in a little disk in the electronic device you wear on your wrist or around your neck and choose a movie from a selection of twenty. Visual is the future. On down the path that movie will play on the brain and you won't need to imagine.

http://www.perrycomer.com

Todd Hunter
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number: 3715
Registered: 02-2003

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Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 04:53 pm:

Here is where I think things are going - pop in a little disk in the electronic device you wear on your wrist or around your neck and choose a movie from a selection of twenty.

Isn't that what people can do right now with the new iPod (or maybe the iPhone), but without the little disk required? I believe you can also watch movies on the new PSP, but it still has a "disk" of sorts.

I imagine bookstores will still be around, they'll just look different than they do currently. Perhaps instead of stocking books on the shelves, there will merely be cover art on the shelf with an electronic ID tag displayed. A person will take the e-book reader up to the shelf and download a sample to read, and then have the option to make a full purchase through the wi-fi internet within the store.

Mindsight Moderator
Aston's Blog

Tom Elkins
Wisdom Member
Post Number: 888
Registered: 01-2005

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Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 06:45 am:

If you're nervous about the future of the published printed word perhaps you should be thankful for Congress, and like-minded governments around the world which crank out thousands of pages daily. Sure, the plot stinks and the characters are weak (if at all), but it's ink on paper.......

Tom Elkins
NORTH of TEXAS
www.authorsden.com/tomelkins

Joyce Scarbrough
Unity Member
Post Number: 1181
Registered: 03-2004

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Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 07:38 am:

I'm happy about Amazon's e-reader because it means my books are automatically available as Kindle e-books (thanks to LA's contract with Stonehedge Publishing to release all our titles as e-books in the usual formats) and it means more potential sales and exposure for my books with no effort or expense required on my part.

However, I won't be asking for a Kindle reader or any other kind of e-book reader for Christmas or any other gift-giving occasion. I'm a very tactile person and love the feel of books as well as the smell, as Frank does. Just about everyone I know is the same way, so I don't think books will be going anywhere. And we still have quite a few small indie bookstores around here that have that cozy ambience we all love, and one in particular has as its most loyal customers a group of Goth kids who are voracious readers. So it's not just we old fogeys who love books.

My 18-year-old daughter (who reads even more than her mother) tells me that a lot of her friends have become music purists: they only want to listen to their favorite vintage music on vinyl because it's in its original form that way and sounds better. Yep, they're talking about records, folks. Even I prefer CDs to records! If there's still a market for vinyl records, I'm sure there are also young bookworms who are just as adamant about their literature and will always want real books to read.

~Joyce Sterling Scarbrough
True Blue Forever
ISBN 0-9722385-9-X
Different Roads
ISBN 0-9722385-3-0
Authors Ink Books
http://www.authorsinkbooks.com

Read the first chapters: http://www.authorsden.com/joycelscarbrough1
Waste time on Joyce's Blog: http://joycescarbrough.blogspot.com
Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kztz5e3XZeo

Harry Simenon
Unity Member
Post Number: 1707
Registered: 10-2003

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Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - 10:03 am:

I think there should be one format for all E-readers: like Adobe.
Also the contrast should be high: the best technology at this moment for E-readers is E-ink. That looks excactly like paper.

What I don't like about the kindle is the keyboard. I want much display without the thing getting too big.

E readers are definitly the future, although books will never completely disappear.

a1209520177178 (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: 210.188.216.67

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Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 03:49 am:

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