iPad and Kindle: The demise of the Book

[mudmucker]

I am not averse to either.

I love the book experience for it's obvious soulful and tactile experience. I love my kindle too. In my 20's though, I helped a friend move around 80 boxes of books and it wasn't fun. I vowed from then on to not obtain a collection like that. I became a library fan. Anywhere I moved, I got library cards to at least 5-6 surrounding towns. I love the library experience, to go in and lose yourself among the myriad of aisles and quiet. On a rainy day I've emerged from the library hours later, quite transformed and refreshed. I love the library experience so much I attempt to make the experience as organic as possible - I make a point to ride my bike to the library with my panniers and depending on where I've lived, has been many miles. Currently, riding to the nearest library is a 34 mile round-trip so it becomes a special destination experience for me.

I also love used bookstores. B&N and all that is fun and I often visit, but it is comparatively glitzy and commercial...new books are even superflous in a way although it must start new at some point. Like libraries, going to a used bookstore to me is green and utilitarian. I take comfort in used books. My favorite used bookstore is Troubador Books, a treasure of a place within driving distance to me.

I don't have a lot of room, nor do I like the accumulation of piles of newspapers, magazines, etc. I will still buy a book now and then, used or new but it has to be something like a reference or something not amenable to electronic form.

I love my Kindle too for obvious reasons stated previously. I bought one this winter as a present to myself before a long recovering from surgery. I couldn't drive for 6 weeks and it was stormy enough to keep friends from visiting often. I could get most anything I wanted immediately and at any hour. I can pile hundreds of books in one device and carry it where ever I want. I can read comfortably in bed without having to hold a heavy book. Saves a lot of space in my house that's for sure.

I don't think books will vanish anytime too soon. Books are too much of an ethereal human experience to be lost forever.