[Publib] Books and Kindle

[MichaelMay.59213074 at bloglines.com]

I gave Kindle a try recently. I downloaded and read Lost on Planet China by
J. Maarten Troost, which was OK. I should have waited for 	
Ghost Train to
the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux.
But Theroux will be much better in print, anyway.

What I really wanted
was Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don
Borchert, but I couldn't find it in the Kindle store. Hmmph!

Ironically,
I selected a trial subscription to the Washington Post, and it is very good
in electronic format. Of course, the op-ed columnist cited below, Richard
Cohen, is dead wrong, Kindle is not "the beginning of the end [of] books as
books." And too bad he doesn't mention public libraries in his blurb.

There's
an element of subversiveness to books and public libraries which Kindle definitely
lacks. Kindle is a controlled device, and books within it are exactly that,
books trapped within a device. Or better yet, they are illusions of books
trapped within a device. Cohen might come to understood this after he uses
Kindle, and might then realize why books and libraries and maybe even bookstores
will persist.

Mike in Dubuque

--- Susan Vittitow" <SVITTi at state.wy.us
wrote:
>From the Washington Post this morning
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/04/AR2008080401823.html