October 12, 2006--e-Books

Call me old-fashioned, but I like to curl up with a book. Decidedly not with a laptop.

So when I read today in the NY Times that downloadable electronic-books are maybe making a comeback, I was not happy. (Article linked below.) Here I thought we were done with that, that the e-book bubble burst at about the same time as the dot-com one. But along comes SONY (of exploding battery fame—so much for reading in bed) with their new Sony Reader, which makes it sound as if non-virtual book may be imperiled.

Here are some of the features that the SONY folks think will make it viable and over time make traditional book publishing obsolete:

First, the Reader is sleek, which is a big deal in the portable electronics business—just look at the success of the Razr cell phone. Then, for leisure travelers who crave free time away from home and office to catch up on their reading, the Sony Reader will make it possible to schlep along dozens of Mary Higgins Clark “books” without risk of going over airlines’ weight allowances.

And the Reader’s electronics make speed reading a snap—one can literally race through an entire “book” in seconds. In fact, it has a nifty feature that allows for a special kind of skimming—you can jump ahead in the book in ten-percent segments. This capacity makes it the ideal way to read War and Peace and Finnegan’s Wake between lunch and dinner at your favorite Rock Resort.

And of course this new device is very Green, very environmentally friendly since there is no paper (except for the cardboard box and Styrofoam packing in which it comes) and uses electricity (battery power) only when you “turn a page.” And very little of that to boot so you can read through all the “pages” of The Da Vinci Code 16 times without recharging. In top-percent chunks that would be 160 times.

Further, if you get bored reading (which I think is guaranteed if you “read” this way), it can also serve as an MP3 Player and apparently even a telephone. So you can listen to music while reading and call your friends to talk about Joyce as you rip through the “pages.” Perfecto!

As for old-fascinated me, I like the heft of a book, especially if I rest it on my stomach while reading as I look out over, say, the Mediterranean. I also like the way shelves and shelves of books look in a living room. And I even like the smell of them when I let one fall softly to my face when I pause to snooze.

Now if the SONY contraption can do all of this, let's talk.