Kindle – The Death of Books?

There has been a lot of talk recently about a new wave in publishing called the Kindle. “The Kindle is an e-book reader, an embedded system for reading electronic books, launched in the United States by prominent online bookseller Amazon.com in November 2007.” The Kindle 2 will be available for purchase starting Feb 24 for about $360. “The new Kindle features improved battery life (up to two weeks), 20 percent faster page-refreshing, a text-to-speech option to read the text aloud, and overall thickness reduced to 0.36 inches (the size of a small paperback book). To promote the new Kindle, author Stephen King has written a novella called UR, which is available exclusively as a Kindle download.” (Wikipedia)


The Kindle lets users download most bestselling books for $9.99 onto a high-resolution screen with a white background and black text, imitating the look of a real book. More than 230,000 titles are available for the Kindle. Customers can also download major U.S. and international magazines and newspapers, as well as more than 1,200 blogs. (Bloomberg news)


This is the wave of the future, whether it is your kindle, i-phone or archaic laptop you will eventually no longer go to your local bookstore to purchase you favorite author. You will simply push a button and up will come your book of choice. I have to admit I find this all a bit sad. There is something so soothing about picking up your favorite book while relaxing in your bed at night or sitting on the beach with the newest brain candy. It just wont be the same. But with change good comes as well. More titles will be accessible all over the world and it may even open the doors for more unpublished authors to finally get their work out there!