When I first saw images of Amazon’s recently released Kindle it immediately conjured up memories of ‘Forbidden Planet’. It looked so lumpy and cumbersome and almost Fisher-Price in design.
Then I watched the demo video and suddenly I was on the waiting list to receive my very own, fired-up as the product name suggests.
Not only will I be able to carry around a library of books with me, but I can find out the answers to questions on Wikipedia and refer to numerous newspapers and magazines around the globe. What an amazing tool for the writer that travels. No more hefty tomes, towers of travel guides and rucksacks of research to lug around, but masses of information and entertainment at your finger-tips whether on a bus or on top of a train.
Imagine strolling around Roman ruins, Kindle in hand, pulling up Wikipedia entries for every curiosity you encounter, sitting down with a menu and discovering what the strange ingredients really are or flicking through a travel guide picked from one of hundreds already available for the Kindle. Bliss.
Of course not every book will be available, there’s still a very good reason to browse local bookshops and markets for reading matter and, in my opinion, there’s still no real alternative to the feel, look and smell of a new or well-thumbed book.
(C) Calmer, 2007.
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