Reading

Leaving the Asylum

I read this post with some sadness, as John is giving his blog a break. He writes book reviews, great pieces about proper books. He says it’s going to be temporary, I hope it will be.

John’s blog is an example of why handing the process of publishing into the hands of everyone is a good idea. Amongst the egos, the idiots and the talentless are the gems like John, who make sifting through all the shit worthwhile.

Without the internet, and without the development of the technology that democratises the power to publish, I would never have bought the books he recommended and my life would have been less rich as a result.

Just another reason why this stuff matters.

Kindling

My Kindle arrived today.

I can haz Kindle

For those that don’t know, it’s Amazon’s own e-reader, a portable device that can hold around 1,500 books in its memory which can be read by turning pages using the buttons.

Even though I knew the screen was 6 inches, it still seemed smaller than I was expecting. The device is also a lot thinner than I thought it would be:

Thindle

The screen is really weird, it’s like nothing you’ve looked at before – other than the page of a book. Very odd.

Another interesting thing is the wireless – the Kindle uses the cell network, the cost of which is covered by Amazon and is presumably a part of the cost of the device.

Anyway, I can buy and download books from Amazon.com – not from the UK store yet (which may mean spelling issues…), or add books or documents from my computer. This can be done either by plugging the Kindle into my computer with the supplied USB cable (also my only way of charging it, since the plug supplied is US only too), or by sending a file by email to a special address, which is pretty neat.

You can also use the keyboard to add annotations to documents or books, so this could be really useful for students.

As well as established e-readers like the Sony Reader, the Kindle also has competition from Barnes and Nobles’ new Nook. Crunchgear has a useful comparison chart.

Win! Win! Win!

I was lucky, in a sense, to get this through the post today as a reward for subscribing to a magazine:

“In a sense”, because I already own it.

‘So!’ I thought. ‘Here’s a chance for a competition!’

If you want the book, all you have to do is comment on this post. Put what you like in the body of the comment, all I really need is your name and email address. Mossychops will then pick a winner at random next Friday (21st August).

Good luck!

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