July 9, 2008: Old-Fashioned Books, New-Fangled Reading

Story and Photo By Joe Zlomek

The book being read by the woman on a train into Philadelphia this morning (July 9, 2008) had what looked like a hard cover. It was colorful, with decoration in royal blue and gold, but it lacked a title.

It also lacked pages.

The woman was carrying a Kindle, the electronic book-reading device now available for purchase from Amazon.com. It allows book content to be loaded and carried digitally, and it displays words in black type on a white screen ... the same way they would appear on paper. The colorful, protective cover is optional.

The woman looked up from the screen to happily show the device to a neighboring passenger. It obviously wasn't the first time she'd done so. "I bet I sell more of these on the train than Amazon does," she said.

In describing herself as an avid book reader, the woman said she had her doubts in buying a Kindle months ago at the relatively steep retail price of $359. "I didn't think I'd like it," she said. Instead, she quickly added, "I love it."

She and her husband, also a book enthusiast, live in the Philadelphia suburbs. With more than 800 volumes already on their home shelves, storage space became an issue, she said. The couple either had to stop reading, or find a more efficient way to keep a library. The Kindle was their answer.

Because words and text are among the easiest and smallest objects to store electronically, The Kindle can internally hold the content of up to 200 books. "That's more than what we need for our purposes," she said, and wireless connectivity makes it convenient to load new books from almost anywhere. "I haven't found too many places where it won't work. Cell phones should be that good," she wished.

Controls for moving ahead and back in The Kindle's display are located on the front panel at the bottom of the device. She's heard other users complain that the controls can be triggered accidentally, particularly by people with large hands whose palms rest on or cover the panel.

She's run into a different problem. What she really needs now, the woman concluded, "is more time to read."