I own a Kindle, and it's a wonderful thing. It stores hundreds of books, displays them well, allows instant gratification if you want to read a novel you have heard of (mostly), has a good form factor and excellent battery life.
I fear that the Kindle – and its ilk – will kill reading.
Beyond my parent's love of books – reading with and to me, and the fantastic Children's Book Club my mother joined – two things drove my passion for reading .
The first was the fantastic public libraries that the UK has had for years. In my teenage years I consumed up to 8 books a week, and slightly less when younger. Sadly, this is a system under threat as the present austerity measures, and fall in usage of libraries, take a toll. I have some guilt here, as I don't really use the library these days as the backlog of books I own is too big. Nathan does, through school.
The second was discovering the books that rested on my parent's shelves. I explored, sneaked looks at, and devoured the contents avidly. It drove some of my tastes in literature, which is probably a fusion between my father's love of SF and my mother's love of more literary and historical novels.
The Kindle kills this. No browsing. No exploring. No discovery without purchase.
I worry.
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