I was so busy downloading the app...

I was so long writing my review that I never got around to reading the book. Groucho Marx

I was so busy downloading the app that I never got around to reading the book. Blue Skunk

Screen shots from the Kindle Reader for the iPod/iPhone:

Whispersync? Stealth downloading?

Title page.

Hyperinked Table of Contents. Showing controls to go back, add bookmark, change font size, and command to take one to "the furthest page read."

A single page. Middle font size setting.

I don't think I will be reading War and Peace on this anytime soon, but it's kind of cool .... and free if you already read on a Kindle.

How long do you keep reading?

One of my favorite authors, Dan Simmons, has a new book - Drood. It is not science fiction, is 800 pages long, and has received mixed reviews. And the Kindle version sells for $14.99 instead of the normal $9.99. All those extra bits and bytes for such a long book, I suppose. Simmon's last book, The Terror, was a grueling read. I think I may wait and check this one out from the public library.

The thought of starting such a long book started me thinking... How many pages do you give a book before you put it down and write it off as just "not for me"? The librarian's librarian, Nancy (Book Lust) Pearl, once gave this advice on NPR: Read 50 pages and if it hasn't grabbed you by then, give up. Unless you are over 50 years old. Then subtract your age from 100 and give up at that page number. (I can stop reading at page 44 now.) She opined that time becomes more valuable the less we have of it, so no use using those last few breaths reading something that doesn't grab you. Good point.

Is there a classic book you know you should like and have started a number of times but just can't get into? Catch 22 is that book for me. I want to like it, but I always give up.

Seth Godin in Revinventing the Kindle (part II) writes that e-books should change the reading experience:

8. Allow all-you-can-eat subscriptions if the author or publisher wants to provide it. Let me buy every book Seth has written, or all the business books I can handle, or "up to ten books a week." Remember, the marginal cost of a book is now the cost of the bandwidth to deliver it, so buffets make economic sense.

Just think of a Netflix for books. Just one of several interesting ideas about making reading more social as it becomes more digital Godin writes about.

I still can't get my head around how libraries will handle circulating digital books - or if they ever will. The whole economic raison d'etre for libraries - that it is cheaper to buy one book and share it than buy a book for every individual - isn't vaild when books, like songs, get down to a few cents a piece. And they will. The cost of cataloging, staffing, housing and delivering a print book - even if shared - would probably be more than just giving all citizens a voucher for all the books they could read. OK, I know it's not that simple.

Or is it?

Cost of paper

Printing The NYT Costs Twice As Much As Sending Every Subscriber A Free Kindle

Nicholas Carlson does the math using the cost of printing a year's worth of the New York Times.

How much paper would need to be eliminated from a student's school year to pay for an e-book reader? Or a netbook?

• textbooks
• worksheets and study guides
• novels and supplimentary reading
• forms, permission slips, newsletters
• student work turned in on paper

How much is your district now paying for print versions of textbooks, paper, copiers, printers, toner, support, repairs, printer salaries, storage spaces, delivery costs, and other print related costs over, say, two years? Divide total by number of students. Is it more or less than $350? - the cost of a netbook.