http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983/output/print

Article Title: The Future of Reading

As the time left of my Thanksgiving break is dwindling quickly, I squeezed in some time last night to read the latest Thomas Perry novel that I picked up from the local library. At the same time, my husband sits at his desk browsing through the ebooks he has been downloading this week. We talk about the differences in what we read, he skims articles about photography while I sit curled up with a work of fiction.

This particular article is a device being offered by Amazon to bring together the best of both worlds. It is a device called the Kindle, which will allow users to download books to it so that they can read whatever is of interest to them.  Here is a description of the device:  The Kindle (named to evoke the crackling ignition of knowledge) has the dimensions of a paperback, with a tapering of its width that emulates the bulge toward a book’s binding. It weighs but 10.3 ounces, and unlike a laptop computer it does not run hot or make intrusive beeps. A reading device must be sharp and durable, Bezos says, and with the use of E Ink, a breakthrough technology of several years ago that mimes the clarity of a printed book, the Kindle’s six-inch screen posts readable pages. The battery has to last for a while, he adds, since there’s nothing sadder than a book you can’t read because of electile dysfunction. (The Kindle gets as many as 30 hours of reading on a charge, and recharges in two hours.) And, to soothe the anxieties of print-culture stalwarts, in sleep mode the Kindle displays retro images of ancient texts, early printing presses and beloved authors like Emily Dickinson and Jane Austen.”  One can change the font size, too, for ease of reading.

The cost of the device is $400, and books can cost up to $9.99.  The most appealing part of this device to me is that I could carry around 200 books in something the size of a paperback book.  I know the way technology is, the price will come down dramatically in the next year.

If price were no object, would you buy one?  Why or why not?