While the old articles in this blog are gradually reappearing after the total crash, a few words about my Amazon Kindle, which arrived yesterday. I had been thinking for a long time about whether I should actually get an ebook reader, because actually, apart from the technical gimmick, I felt little enthusiasm for the electronic book. 10 years ago I had written a thesis about digitized classics, at that time still about literature on CD-ROM, which was supposed to introduce the end of the book (which we didn’t believe even then).
You have to own good books, I thought, and that’s how I still think, because a good book becomes part of your own story, every coffee stain in the book is a mental postcard of the café on vacation where you had the book on the table. And then there is this stupid DRM: The books are lost as soon as I decide to buy another device, and didn’t Amazon embarrass itself after it automatically deleted copies of the classic in 1984 purchased via the Amazon Whispernet? Why had I changed my mind?
I can’t deny that the technical gimmick played a role. But she didn’t play the leading role. Because, of course, the Kindle offers some advantages:
- I can have several books on the Kindle at the same time, which is very charming, especially when traveling.
- I can search books, which I find very convenient.
- I can have books IMMEDIATELY, and that should not be underestimated, especially with technical books that could be used very urgently right now.
- I can enter notes directly there and no longer have to worry about whether I still have enough Post-it! notes to stick them in the book. Ideally, I don’t have to type the notes anymore, because they are already available digitally.
- English books are cheaper. According to my calculations, the Kindle should have amoritized in less than a year.
What are the disadvantages?
- The books are not on the shelf. I can’t just take it out for a moment, browse through it, remember the café elsewhere because there’s a coffee stain in the book in it.
- If Amazon goes bankrupt or I buy a device from another manufacturer, then the books are gone.
- I can’t sell the electronic books at a flea market or on eBay.
- The Kindle is probably not usable in the bathtub.
- There are no used eBooks I could buy (I love buying used books)
Can the advantages compensate for the disadvantages? No. Never. But that’s not the point. You can’t compensate for the disadvantages of a convertible with the advantages of an off-road vehicle, because they are two different cars for completely different needs. The Kindle is not a substitute for the book. But that’s what someone who grew up with real books says. For the next generation, books made of paper may be just as obsolete as vinyl records.
But what is it like now, the Amazon Kindle? Quite ok:
- What is disappointing for me is that I can’t export the notes I make in a book. But typing is no fun with the keyboard anyway.
- But I can “copy” articles from a newspaper.
- You can read excellently on the Kindle, better than I would have thought.
- It feels good in the hand.
- It has not yet worked for me that a book would have been downloaded within 1 minute.
- I have subscribed to a newspaper (unfortunately the Süddeutsche does not yet exist), and in fact, when I wake up in the morning, it is already on the device. But here no problem was solved that I had before, after all, the act of buying the newspaper, preferably together with the breakfast rolls, contains a certain feeling of well-being.
- You can’t read blogs, but that was communicated in advance.
- Wikipedia goes for this, which I would not have expected.
- The lexicon is excellent.
What books have I bought so far? Specialist literature, sometimes even books that I already own. I can’t imagine reading a novel on it. Maybe I’ll load up a few classics from the Gutenberg Project, I’m sure it’ll be good to be able to look up exactly what the crucial question was at any time. But at the moment, the Kindle is a work tool for me that allows me to comfortably read the books I need to read on the go. To be continued…