I'm also looking forward to a subscription model where I can read as many books as I want for a monthly fee, like netflix.

How far away will that be?

This type of technology has true transforming power. It brings knowledge to the masses, much like the internet.

But not all people can afford a computer, or even using the internet is hard due to its structure (what the hell is a URL?), but a magic book in every hand that can search and find any book. Me like.

Beside, the net doesn't have real knowledge like books do. Unless you consider volumes and volumes of porn as real knowledge.

One of the features I most look forward to is being able to read big, heavy books with one hand, while lying on my back, etc.

This is a fully functional computer too, weighs about 2 bs and has a great screen that you can customize to the age of your eyeballs…

This is a fully functional computer too, weighs about 2 bs and has a great screen that you can customize to the age of your eyeballs…

Welcome to the dark side. I love the physical aspects of books but the electronic readers have a lot to offer and I've shifted 90% of my book reading to electronic.

I've had a Sony PRS-500 for a year or so now and found many of the same things to be true. The airline issue was one I never anticipated and so I now have a crossword book next to my ebook. I've also found that;

- The ebooks are not a total replacement for regular books and particulary not for newspapers.

- I can not convey how much it improves traveling. Particulary on multiday trips that would require more than one book.

- I'm reading a lot more and I'm reading more classics (as they are free).

Frank

I do work on commission. If you buy a Kindle through the link in the right-hand margin or the link in this post, Cafe Hayek's proprietors do make a little something to cover our costs…

Any purchases always appreciated.

Nope. A cantankerous young fart.

Why just the other day I decided to buy one of them there horseless carriages. Seems a mite more convenient to me. Hay is bout near as dear as that there gasoline anyway!

LOL!

You may find that you can live without it. I stopped reading that rag a couple of years ago when the stories about the rioting French youths were buried on page 10.

Also, I use manybooks.net to download a lot of neat public domain books that are Kindle-formatted, then transfer them over to the device via USB.

The key (to me) for understanding the Kindle ecosystem is to see it as a parallel to the early days of iTunes. Sure, the process of converting a book to digital format is nowhere near as easy as ripping a song from a CD into MP3, but it's a pretty similar retail marketplace, as Amazon has to negotiate with a ton of publishers about rights, prices, etc.

it is what it is and I am what I am.

A cantankerous old fart?

I'm 20 years younger and well into the TV generation, but I finally rebelled and now watch no television at all, except occasionally in hotel rooms and when visiting friends. I still enjoy a few television programs, but I won't have one on in my house. The web has replaced television for me now, and I do read online a lot, even the scattered works of vidyohs now and then.

What I really want more than a Kindle is a good, mobile web browser with affordable broadband, something like a Sony Mylo with 3G access when a wifi router is not in range. I'd like a detachable, full sized keyboard too. Digital paper seems an improvement, but I've read lcds for so long now that I hardly know the difference.

The iphone is close, but the display is small, and I can't bring myself to pay two grand for the wireless contract. The Mylo is very close, but I'm too often far from a wifi connection. Kindle's footprint seems about right, but the little keyboard annoys me. I'd rather have it larger and detachable. On the Mylo, at least it's retractable. A Mylo with some always-on wireless access, pay as you go like the Kindle, as a backup for wifi, is what I want. It can't be far away.

Regardless, something of the kind will be ubiquitous soon. I don't know the number, but the conventional book's days are numbered. They may never go away entirely, but they'll be a quaint reminder of simpler times soon enough.

I guess I need to get out more.

I can appreciate the convenience of such as the Kindling especially if one is traveling and finishes what one is carrying for reading. The Kindling would make it easy to begin a new story without having to look for and purchase a new book.

I suppose that if I had grown up with electronic gadgets I might feel differently; but it is what it is and I am what I am.

I am amazed at how thin the line is that separates me from the "others". I was born in 1941 and my first wife was born in 1945. By age 5 she always lived with a TV in her home. I didn't see one until nearly age 14 and had none in the home until 1957. She was what I call of the "TV generation" and I am not and can never be. For reading pleasure I prefer my books, and in general I despise TV and hate reading on a computer.

Lots of good stuff there. The Wisdom of Father Brown read by Martin Clifton is very good.

Not the same thing as a kindle but, for those who are interested, the above URL takes you to a free source of audio books and some movies. All the books are in the public domain so the selection does not include everything you might be interested in.

I have downloaded some to disc to make the drive to and from my jobs in Texas traffic more tolerable.

Can't you just copy Wealth of Nations to the Kindle from your computer without emailing it? There's enough free stuff online to keep you reading for a thousand lifetimes, but I suppose modernity is worth a little attention.

Now that i have had it long enough i have come to actually prefer it to real books.

Sure i still love having something on my book shelf, but the fact is there are few books that i go back to all that often and more importantly i can very easily make notes and highlight areas on the kindle and it is actually easier to go back and look at those things on the kindle then in the real book.

Also having a search function on my books is just amazing. Then the amount of free content that i have been trying to read for ages is now very accessible.

There are some serious problem, such as DRM and the device being tied directly to amazon. But this is something that should be dealt with once the ebook market matures (just like it was dealt with as the online music market matured).

It is going to be a while until some gets the whole ebook reader right. Also the economics of these devices really isn't going to work for the mass market until they get ridiculously cheap.