I swear. If one. more. EFin. person tells me: “Get a Kindle.” I will punch them in their piehole. Since I am not a violent person, I am doing the next best thing. Documenting the reasons I do not want one for future: “Why don’t you want a Kindle?” question. I can just point them back here. How efficient -rolls eyes-.
Look, I am eco friendly and do my part. I love gadgets, electronics, basically anything with a power chord and USB cable. I am all about the digital age – just look at my blog, Facebook notes, and FriendFeed. It’s filled with all things shiny and new.
However, some things should be preserved in their original forms, and books are one of them.
It’s about the five senses – technically three, since I don’t eat books to taste, nor do I hear them… I think. (actually, I hear the characters’ voices in my head. Just kidding. Or maybe not. Who cares.)
ANYway, from used books, new books, library books, I love the way they feel when I turn the pages, the scents of dingy and new papers… and the whiff of ink triggers memories of all kinds. I love looking at books, touching them, feeling them, seeing piles of books, and the dust that collects on top of the piles of books.
My bookcase is my trophy case.
Perhaps there will come a time, where PDFs may give me the same effect. Who knows. But for now? I’m sticking to real books.
Besides, PDFs, ebooks, and Kindles are not photogenic.
View all here.
PixelBits 
I think you should get a kindle :p … jk please don’t hit mean. *hides* ;)
I love the smell of a new book; if I’m going to spend any money on my “reading gadgets,” I’m buying hard copies. No eBooks for me =P
The Kindle is a solution without a problem. Books are already portable, so unless you integrate it into a current device it’s not saving me anything. And unlike music, you just don’t read a book again and again and again. There’s no pressing need to have your book catalog at your fingertips while you’re on BART or other public transportation.
The selection is horrible! Sorry, but I don’t read the latest new releases, so until you actually have a decent back list of titles it’s a non-starter.
The price is super high for the device and the cost of a title is comparable or more than I can get a used book from a local bookstore or one of the online stores (Abe, Alibris, Biblio, Powell’s).
I’ve been vocal about Kindle since the start. Here’s a list of all my Kindle related posts on the Used Books Blog.
http://usedbooksblog.com/blog/?s=kindle
Well said! I like the Kindle as a device for newspapers, news magazines, maybe even some blogs. But you are right about books. Here’s to book sniffing, old and new!
A book is portable. *Books* are not.
The Kindle is flat out awesome. What it is NOT is a replacement for “real” books. Owning a Kindle in no way requires that you only buy books in that format. It’s just another option, and there’s nothing wrong with choice. I buy about half of my books for the Kindle. Depends on the book.
Fearing for my safety, I won’t tell you to “Get a Kindle,” but if you did, you would enjoy it, right along with the rest of your library.
I feel you on this post.
I actually think books look amazing on a shelf. I love looking at my bookshelf and realizing that I have read all those books. The number of pages and words and everything. I think it is great.
You hit the nail on the five sense. I especially like hardcover books. I never had any growing up actually, just the library, but I’m building my library so my children can just pick one up and start reading.
Kurt Vonnegut, Aldous Huxley, Great times :)
Well, Im not too familiar with the Kindle or it’s full capabilities but I’ve heard/seen enough about it to get the general idea…. but I can see one great potential use for a Kindle. Or what a Kindle SHOULD evolve into…
College students constantly have to buy text books and theyre expensive as hell. Imagine if a student could have all their textbooks on one solid device. It would save money for the student and in the long run save tons of paper.
Equip the device with a highlighting feature or an annotating feature and I would definitely consider buying one.
Only problem is that I couldnt see the textbook publishers liking the idea of selling their books in .PDF format. So most students utilizing this idea would likely have to pirate all their books, and theyre not going to find EVERY required book on the internet (or maybe they will). I could see publishers selling their textbooks in .AZW or a similar DRM format, but that alone turns me off from the entire idea.
I bet this will be a norm in about ten years for colleges everywhere. Until then, I’ll continue flipping pages and reselling my books at the end of the semester :).
I work for a small publishing/retail company that promotes great literature and sells stuff for those who love books, plus I’m a book hound myself, as well as a techie design geek. So, yeah! After working on a 24″ Mac all day, I am not going home to curl up to a Kindle! Yuck!!!
Thanks, Mona. Good article. See you on Twitter.
I love getting my New York Times stories delivered automatically over 3G many times a day on the Kindle. I assume you don’t have a big love for the smell of newspapers, getting ink on your hands and killing the forests it takes to print a major daily newspaper? I travel a lot and I usually bring a real book with me, but I really can’t bring 10 and not having to use my laptop to read articles and lengthy emails on the plane is another big plus. The Kindle is just a reading device for any sort of material, not just books.