sibhan -- I can completely relate to your dilemma. I, too, love real books. I love bookstores, libraries, Friends of the Library sales, and anything "book." But you are so right; it is so much easier to read books on the Kindle. In addition to the advantages that you mentioned, you can also use the Kindle hands-free -- say while you're drying your hair or stirring a pot.

Honestly, I think the only thing that keeps me from reading almost exclusively on my Kindle, is that I can't afford to buy a book a week. Plus, I really like going to the library.

sarah_canary
Please don't tease this way. My library has downloads to the Kindle. The patron has the book available for two weeks, I think. Check libraries in your area.

I am tempted, but to be honest, I can't afford the outlay of cash, and am not sure which of the systems I would like best.

Like most new technology, I think I'll wait until it matures.

I too have debated with myself about getting one. I have a hard time giving up real books and papers and I also love going to the library.

Here's what you can't do with a Kindle:

Fall asleep with it on your face.

Use it as a sunblock while still reading (well, maybe you can, I don't know for sure)

Leave it on your beach chair while you go for a walk along the shore.

Leave it in your car on a steaming hot day.

Flip ahead to see when the chapter ends

Give it to a friend when your done reading a good story.

It just seems like so many of the "auxiliary" pleasures of reading are missing. I love to peruse the shelves at the library, read the book covers, smell the dust, chat with the people at the desk. And it's all free! Why would I pay $9.99 for a book when I can get it for nothing? Yes, I may have to wait a few weeks for my reserved copy, but in the meantime there are so many things to read.

As for newspapers, I like to clip things and do the puzzles, and save certain sections.

I guess I'm just not ready for a Kindle, although everyone I know who has one loves it.

Your library has downloads to the Kindle? I have never heard of that and in fact was eyeing the Sony because it has just that functionality. Alas, (one should have such problems) Santa brought me a Kindle and I have dispaired over no library access. Could you tell me what library it is so I can see what its website says about it?

I was wondering the same thing. I checked my library's website and couldn't find any mention of any type of e-book. This would be a great thing if the Kindle did this.

The Maryland Library System has downloadable pdf books. I know there was some interface problems with the first version of the Kindle, don't know if they are compatible now.

Have a question, an embarrassing one, sorta. I've a bad habit of always noting how much book is left (and how much of the hour is left in TV episodes) and allowing the knowledge to sometimes spoil a story. "This can't be the bad guy because half the book is left to read" kind of spoiler. Does anyone else? And does a Kindle, lacking the physical feedback of a paper book, prevent such inadvertent spoilers?

No, the Kindle has a small graph at the bottom in lieu of page numbers. It measures in percentage, so you know exactly how much you have left. The thermometer-like measuring device serves very well as a substitute for the thickness of pages. I love to note my progress through the book.

The lack of page numbers is a problem for some readers, particularly for students using textbooks. Obviously this makes citing a reference almost impossible. Possibly the next generation will have some solution. Since one can choose the type size, normal page numbers are irrelevant.

Siobhan, I just got my K and have been having the same thoughts! I have a number of books on the shelf waiting to be read. Kindle will just have to take its turn I guess.

I'm having the opposite problem. I received my Kindle from my very tech-savvy DH for Christmas and while I'm very happy to have it, I've barely used it. I was very excited to find a ton of free book downloads and I even bought one book, so I have plenty to read on it. However, aside from reading one Sherlock Holmes story, I've avoided using it. I've been reading my real books while the Kindle sits there looking forlorn. I think/hope it will come into its own when we travel (I'm known for taking 7 or 8 books with me on any given trip because I don't know what I'll be in the mood to read). But just now, I'm avoiding it. I just can't imagine reading exclusively on the Kindle.

I just got my Nook in this week and, after reading a few books on it, I find I too prefer the eReader. It is so much more comfortable to read from than some books (I think I strained some finger muscles earlier this week reading an unusually shaped book).

I too love real books and don't want to see them go, but for me, I am in love with the Nook.

Hopefully there is room in this world for both. I just finished a 900+ page book on my Kindle, praise be. I appreciated it every moment, which included a hospital stay (very cool to have a entire library in my handbag). And no worries about charging, I can read quite some time as long I turn off the wireless - it lasts at least a week of regular reading. The nurses kept asking me what I was doing - when I showed them, they said they wished all the patients had them as it obviously kept me happy and occupied!

Siobhan, I trust you are okay?

I am 100%, thank you for asking. I just had the same procedure former president Bill Clinton had a couple of days ago, although in different places - I got a couple of stents to open up blocked arteries in my leg and hip. The procedure was very easy and I cannot believe how good I feel now. How lucky I am to live in an age when this problem can be treated so easily and successfully, and to have good insurance to pay for it. And to have a Kindle to entertain myself overnight in the hospital!

Glad you are OK, Siobhan, the wonders of modern medicine . . and in the UK we don't have to pay . . .well we do, of course via taxation, but at least we all get an equal crack of the whip . . . and, unless it is an emergency, we may be at the end of a long waiting list. So swings and roundabouts I suppose.

So, if the Maryland Library system, for example, has free books to download to Kindle, can anyone with a computer get them, or do you have to have a library card for that particular library? (I am in NY.)
I'm just trying to figure out how this works. It would seem not to matter since its just downloads and libraries are free anyway.
I'm technologically impaired, can't even figure out the tv remote control! Well, it is a complicated one! LOL

BTW, I joined....FreeKindleBooks@PixelofInk.com....and I choose free books every day. They send a list to your email of the newest additions to the freebies. It makes it easier than browsing through the whole library of free books on the Kindle site.

karalk, you cannot get "library books" for a Kindle yet; supposedly an agreement with Amazon is in the works to offer books through libraries but for now you cannot download library ebooks to the Kindle. You can do so for many other ereaders (such as the Nook) and devices. Check the website or call the library which you use and you should be able to get a list of compatible devices.

In Maryland, and I imagine for any library system, you do need a library card in order to check out ebooks, e-audiobooks and any other materials. No free lunches. :) The latest brouhaha occurred when one of the ebooks providers decided that an ebook license, which must be purchased by the library system offering the book to its patrons, would expire after "x" number of uses (40, I think.) The practices involving the availability and downloading of what was traditionally library material are going to be evolving for quite some time. Further, while the ebooks provider for my library has some titles always available for download, anything semi-current or semi-popular usually has a waiting list; right now demand is increasing faster than supply.

For all you Kindle owners, here's a recent article discussing the burgeoning agreement between Overdrive (big distributor of ebooks to the libraries, the "middleman" if you will) and Amazon.

Also, I did see on somebody's blog out there that if you can find a library which offers books in Mobipocket format, tech-savvy folks can manage to get them downloaded to a Kindle.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kindle and the library

I do not have a Kindle, maybe in the future. I am interested in Kindle Audio, are any of us famiiar with it??

I've had a Kindle for around 6 months and I haven't read a "real" book since I got the Kindle. I find the Kindle so comfortable and convenient that even though I have several paper books in the house that I would love to read, I won't give up the Kindle long enough to read the old fashioned way. I have given away some paper books and then got them for Kindle so I could still read them. I have never kept books after I read them and it is extremely rare that I reread a book. Maybe that's why I so prefer the Kindle. I do wish I could share really good books with my friend who doesn't have an e-reader. All I can do is encourage her to buy the book I recommend as a used paperback. She seldom buys any book though because she has a number of friends who give her paper books once they have read them. In the future, when more people choose e-books, she may find she isn't being gifted with many paper books. I live in a poor and rural area and libraries out here are small and very poor. My town library doesn't have any e-books. I can easily read three novels per week and I wish I had a friend who owns an e-reader so we could trade the devices or email the novels to each other. I have never read so much as I do now with my Kindle. I don't think I love the Kindle as much as the ease of using an e-reader. If my Kindle ever dies I will consider a different brand of e-reader before buying. Maybe, I would choose the Kindle again--who knows?

You do not have to buy a kindle to have a kindle-I"kindlized" my smartphone, my mini laptop and my laptop computer for free from the Amazon website. Now I am never without a book, because I am never without my phone. It is a smaller screen on the phone and a larger on on the laptop, obviously, but after a few pages I do not really notice the difference. The other very exciting feature is that I can read the same book on all three devices and it remembers where I put the last bookmark!
I still have not purchased very many books-a few that I could not get through the library or at paperbackswap or bookmooch and really wanted to read-but I did load many from the free books, as they suit my tastes.

Siobhan,
If The Sixth Lamentation is "a real page turner" you're going to have a dilemma with a Kindle !! LOL

I have sold used books on Amazon.com for over 10 years as a lucrative hobby.
Suddenly this year my sales dropped off and I soon read that Amazon announced for the first time the sale of ebooks exceeded those of printed books.
Aha.
However, I am finding that there are certain types of books which I am still selling: children's and books with instructional information.
That will probably change in the future as most toddlers now are more at home with IPads ( games, movies, etc.) than books.
*sigh*
Time marches past me and rudely jostles me with it's elbow.

I would love to have an e-book reader (not necessarily a Kindle), especially for travelling and also for long books, and especially for ordering books from abroad, because there is no VAT or import duty on e-books like there is on physical books.

Unfortunately they aren't sold in shops here in Iceland. In fact the only thing resembling an e-reader available here is the iPad, which is hugely expensive. The market here is so small in numerical terms (even though in relative terms we buy more books per head that most all other nations) that publishers aren't publishing e-books and so no-one sees a reason to sell e-book readers.

I don't want to order one before I have had a chance to test-drive 2 or 3 of the best, and for that I'll have to wait for my next trip to the UK or USA.

My biggest use for an e-book reader will, to begin with, be for travelling. Like Sheri, I take a load of books with me when I travel and an e-reader will lighten my luggage considerably, and of course it will be marvellous to not have to take along those huge guide books that just scream "look at me, I'm a tourist!"

E-books are very probably the future for mass consumption of books, but I don't think it's time yet to declare the imminent death of printed books. Physical books will endure because the technology they represent is stable and not in a constant flux like that of e-readers and there are no conflicting formats battling over supremacy. Also, a book does not run out of batteries, so, for example, if you go hiking in the wilderness for three weeks where there is no electricity, you will have to bring a physical book. Books are also more resistant to damp and heat and suntan oil, less likely to get stolen and they can survive being dropped, sat on or chewed by a dog. You will also still be able to read a book even if it has gotten wet, which is more than you can say for a Kindle.

And you can drop a book on a spider !
( apologies to those who would live and let live ;0)

Netla,
Depending on where you travel, if outside Iceland, maybe you could shop for an E-reader in another country?

Today as I volunteered at the charge desk at our (newly rehoused!!!!) town library, our Kindles were delivered. Now to borrow said Kindles you pretty much have to leave your first born and your car and the title to your house, but we have two Kindles that can be taken out for two weeks. (If said Kindle does not come back and get handed directly to a staff person by the due date, the police go and collect said Kindle.) They are preloaded with a zillion books. Okay, 100, I think. Anyway, I am such a contarian I immediately thought "but what if I already read/have no interest in reading 95 of them?" I shushed my brain, though.

It's been a year, I still don't like my Kindle. It's not bad, it's just not a book! I simply cannot warm to reading on it, so I've given it to my DH. Call me a Luddite, but I don't really mind. And yoyobon, I just killed a spider with a paperback last night!

I heard a program on NPR recently (can't remember which one) and one of those tech heads talked about what products are likely to disappear in the future and perhaps surprisingly he said he thought books would survive. He said they are just too convenient and the form is really good. He did say wristwatches would probably go the way of the dinosaur.

I try not to kill spiders, but there are just too many here - I seem to have my very own daddy longlegs community. At first they horrified me, but I've gotten used to them. As long as they keep their distance we can co-exist, but I draw the line at sharing the bathroom sink with them. Although I use tissue, never a book :)

I share your concern, Siobhan. I try to alternate--one book on the K one real book. But recently when reading a 600+ page paperback I realized the need to read the big books on the K and then read smaller "real" books.

I too enjoy "real" books. I like the covers, maps, and feel it is easier to look back than in the K. I've lost my place in the K a few times, maybe due to my ineptness, and it's a pain to get back to the right spot.

The thing I am enjoying the most about my Kindle is all the free books that are available. Even if a book only slightly appeals to me, I order it and check it out. When there's no money involved its easy to be frivolous!

Right now I'm reading A Little Bush Maid by Mary Grant Bruce and LOVING it! Its a children's book about the adventures of a group of kids in Australia. I can't put it down. Its light and funny and compelling.

Never in a million years would I have chosen this book if it hadn't been free.

I just this afternoon received a Sony reader as a birthday gift. I haven't read the paperwork that came with it yet, but do any of you know how it compares to the Kindle or Nook?

While I don't think books in the printed version will disappear, I do think bookshops are under threat (and I work in one). So many people will come in to browse, then buy the book on line, either as a paper format or e-book. Because our market is relatively small, books in Australia are more expensive than the US or the UK, and when you can purchase from Amazon for less, people will do it. Right now the Aussie dollar is over parity with the greenback (10 years ago we were only getting 55c) and it makes it very reasonable, even with the postage (and of course no postage for e-books).

I think people will regret losing a shop where you can come in and browse, check out the content of a book, read a few pages to see if you like the style. But competition is fierce and we, with a main shopping centre street front, heating, lighting, escalators and many staff, can't compete with huge warehouses in the middle of nowhere without these costs.

Next question--do they all have to be charged by computer? My daughter gave me the Sony and said to compare it with the others and decide which I had rather have.

My Kindle 3 charges by computer and also with a wall plug. Battery life is greatly increased if you remember to turn off the WiFi when not in use.

I finished The Sixth Lamentation yesterday....have you finished it yet? Thanks!

If you live in the States, you can borrow books from the library now on your Kindles. Unfortunately that feature is not available in Canada yet. I have over 300 books on my Kindle now, many of them were free. My allergies and asthma start up if I read a musty book so for me the Kindle is the way to go. I only wish the page colour was a light sepia colour instead of grey, and I would also love to see the book covers like you can on the Amazon app for the iPod/iPad.