My Bookshelf

Saturday 18 February 2012

To Kindle or not to Kindle...


Today, a fully-functioning, commercial literary agency walked into the 21st century armed with Amazon's latest state of the art, sleek, lightweight, slate-coloured, brand new Kindle. And, do you know what, I didn't die and there are still books on the shelf - beautifully tidied by me, might I add.

There's no getting away from it - the eBook is here to stay and today was the first time I've really had an up-close look at the beast that threatens to destroy the industry that I am so desperate, perhaps naively, to be part of.


I don't know about any of you kindlers out there but, aside from being easy to use and having ridiculously satisfying screensavers, there's definitely that feeling that you know this is an early generation of something potentially huge. One day it's going to be an all-singing, all-dancing, all-colour glistening beauty but for now, it's got something ancient about it. Maybe that's part of its charm? That its trying to slot its way into a world that has been around for so long and still produces thick bricks of paper for people to spill coffee over and accidentally rip.


For me, I can't see myself in the near future buying one of these for myself but it's fun and, realistically, necessary for me to be used to using one considering my job. The best thing about it for now, though, is that I can now read unpublished, unbound manuscripts on the train! Wow... geeky. But seriously, I can't believe that anyone, whether it 2012 or 1812, carrying around hundreds of double-spaced A4 pages could not do with a nice handy slimline tablet device to make it all that little bit easier.

Let's see where it takes me... but for now, would love to know where you all stand on the Kindle divide! x

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