My life with Kindle 2

It's been a month since I got my Kindle 2 and I think I know enough about it now to assess its impact. Based on what I know about the Kindle and the Sony ebook reader my opinion is that while there's a market for them ebook readers will not revolutionize the way we read.

One of the first things that struck me about the Kindle 2 was how small and light it was. The screen area is the size of a paperback novel, while the keyboard buttons are about half the size of a typical cell phone. The screen is black and white, and doesn't always display charts, graphs, and pictures well. The words are easy enough on the eyes, but the lack of a built-in reading light can be restrictive.

I'll leave the technical reviews to the professionals, and instead talk about how the Kindle has changed my reading habit. The first thing I did is to load the Kindle with books that I would normally read. I added Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Suze Orman's Action Plan, a subscription to The Atlantic and Paul Krugman's blog. I also added books that I always wanted to read but didn't buy because I don't think I have either the time or the space for them: the collected works of Chekhov, a collection of Rumi's poetry, short stories by HP Lovecraft, Plutarch's Lives, and the Tolstoy novella Death of Ivan Ilych. In the past month I was able to finish all of the works in the first category and worked halfway through the second group.

I doubt I could've made that much progress on paper. Is it because the novelty factor? I don't think so. I'm not really a gadget guy and rarely tries something just because it's new. The main advantages of reading on the Kindle is that it is lighter and easier to hold than many books, so maybe there's an ergonomic benefit. It is also a lot easier to switch between different books when you're ready to take a break from the book you're reading now. For me, the act of putting down a book and picking up another presents a sort of psychological barrier that sometimes keeps me from continuing to read. So, even though I would spend the same amount of time reading a piece, about twenty minutes, on the Kindle I am more likely to switch to another text with two clicks of the keyboard, rather than going to sleep or switching on the tv like I would do before.

While the Kindle has dramatically increased my reading time and speed, I don't see it as having the same impact on literacy as inventions like the paper or the printing press. First, most people read their news online nowadays. The Kindle is not likely to become the premier tool for news reading because its lack of color and limited capability to show pictures. Reading Newsweek without pictures is just not the same. The difficulty in making notes and highlights in the text in Kindle is another problem that will keep it from replacing books. If you read strictly fiction then that's probably not a big issue. The impact of this device on the publishing industry is hard to anticipate, and I'm also not sure how the Kindle can fit into the book tour culture.

Until the technical issues are straightened out and the economics of ebook publishing becomes mature, the Kindle is probably going to remain a niche product.