You, sir, are a fanatic and a fool, NOT for promoting progress, but for advocating we burn away the past and treat it as an irrelevancy.

Obsolete does NOT mean you jsut destroy it...

Or, well...if we SHOULD destroy everything obsolete...

Is your retirement plan a trip over Niagra Falls?

Here's one for you...

Brave New World (A. Huxley) from Amazon on Kindle - $6.95
Brave New World (A. Huxley) from Amazon in paperback - $6.27 new, $2.95 used...

And I don't have to have a $100 or more ereader (or expensive laptop) to read that $2.95 used copy.

+1 Draug, and +1 Huxley, for forseeing such recklessness...

(Off topic, but what do you think of the opening of Brave New World? I love it...after that, the book loses a bit of steam, I think, but the opening, with the boys touring the facility with the administrator explaining this society...chilling.)

I think geo was exaggerating to emphasize his point. It's true. Paper books are on the way out. Not this year or even this decade but times are changing.

I must again ask how people in a third world country who have no internet access are supposed to make their kindles download all these great books.

And mind, I do have the kindle reader on my laptop and have been using it to catch up on some classics I haven't been able to find in the used paperback store.

I still don't think they'll ever die out though...

There may come a time where e-books are more common, and that's fine, more power to progress, I say...

But I can't see a day--or at least not a day in a future that's NOT 1984/Brave New World-esque--where every single paper-back and leather-bound book on Earth is destroyed, and no more are produced...

We still "have" old stone and clay tablets, after all...we don't use them anymore, and that's fine, we progressed, but the point is, we still HAVE them...

And because I haven't played the one card I always play, I'll play it now:

Which do you think would be more valued to a Shakespeare fan or scholar:

A collection of all of his plays on a Kindle...
Or one, just ONE FULL ORIGINAL PLAY to come down to us in Shakespeare's Writing?

...

Aside from Roland Emmerich, I'm willing to bet most here would take the Shakes original?

Either you treasure that thing FOREVER knowing you have probably one of the most sought-after and valuable pieces of paper in literary and huamnities history...

OR, if you honestly could care less about Shakespeare, which do you think will fetch a higher price, the E-Reader or Original Manuscript version?

;)

I think it's important to remember that one of the main reasons to read is enjoyment. If you enjoy books more as books, read those. If you prefer them on an ereader, great. I'm not really sure why there's so much fighting over this.

Plus, what the hell will all of us first edition and antique book collectors collect?

@abgemacht:

Why the Great Kindle-Book War?

1. I would like a truce between the two camps, but General Geo is threatening Genocide against all paper and leather-bound books, saying we should just burn them all in the name of progress...and we simply cannot allow that! :O

2. I agree with Draug's Internet point, if you're in a country where either the Internet is banned--cough, North Korea, cough--or is restricted severely--Iraaaaan! whew! excuse me!--or else jsut in an impoverished state and can't afford an electronic device and/or computer...how are you supposed to read and, thusly, gain knowledge and form ideas?

3. I still hold that while Kindles have a great technological edge, there IS a great tactile and historical feel to books...the feel and smell of an old book, or a crisp new one, or a nice leather-bound one, ou don't get that with a Kindle...and as for a historical way, old books can really be valuable, monetarily and otherwise--I have a 1907 copy of "An evening with Shakspere," and no, that's not a typo, but how it's spelt on the cover and in the book, its before the spelling was standardized...and it's this tiny little leather thing, with three plays in it--Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet--and it's just kind of cool to own a Shakespeare copy that's over a hundred years old (some girl in class one day who I'd never even spoken to just walked up to me and said she thought I should have it...I still have no idea where she got it or why she gave it to me, but it's a great little gem for an English major like myself, something to treasure, a link to the past, and it makes for a hell of a better story than "This girl sent me a digital copy of those plays." Logical? Not completely...but not all of being human IS logic...

Hence the term the Humanities--there's an element of nostalgia involved in being human, and without it, I'd argue we lose our link to the past and, subsequently, our present humanity.

"Plus, what the hell will all of us first edition and antique book collectors collect?"

Antique eReaders? Hold onto that first generation Kindle. It could be worth some money one day.

Honestly, the book was my least favorite part of reading.

Pages would rip, it took two hands to hold comfortably, I couldn't rest it against something and read it while lying down, I'd lose my page, they couldn't fit in my pocket well, etc.

If you like reading real books, that's great, but I think you should prepare yourself for a big shift to digital. People used to complain about typewriters taking away the personal touch of pen and paper, and then people complained about computers taking away the personal touch of the typewriter. Some people still use pen or typewriters, but they are the exception, not the norm.

Also, the cheapest kindle is $80 and that price will only go down.

OK, so it's $79 for the old ones. That's still 10 paperbacks. or two hard covers.

Books won't go away in my lifetime. (I have 40 to 50 years left if I'm lucky) and I thank God for that.

No, the brand-new one is $80. Every year, the price of kindles goes down while the price of books goes up.

I don't think books will go away, but I think ebooks are going to become much more popular.

@abgemacht:

That's fine, again, I don't MIND digital readers--hell, I have my on my Android "Women in Love" by D.H. Lawrence, "The Metamorphosis" by Kafka, "Paradise Lost" by John Milton, a selection of poems by Byron, Keats, and others, and, of course, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare--I just think...well they USED to say

"Paper or Plastic?"

At the stores, right? :)

Why not for books?

There's market enough for both, I'm sure, and maybe a hundred years from now paperbacks will be antiques, but for RIGHT NOW...

The option is nice, both have their strong points.

(And I can be perfectly comfortable resting a book agaisnt my knee or holding it with one hand and so on...but maybe that's just me, again, to each his own...no one's mentioned them yet, but audiobooks are great, too.) :)

Also, a word on the cost of books:

Even if prices for books DO go up in comparison to E-Readers...

Well, if they're expensive NOW, think what they'll be woth when your hardcover, leather, and paperback books are antiques!

You'll WISH you had stores of them to sell to collectors...as there will always be collectors, and the rarer something gets, often, the more it costs to buy... ;)

"Well, if they're expensive NOW, think what they'll be woth when your hardcover, leather, and paperback books are antiques!"

Nothing. Very few books age well in the antiques world.

So treat them well...again the ones that DO survive will then be worth more!

:)

(Though I'd probably still keep mine, I love my self-made library too much--or at least a copy of each author, some, like Shakepeare, I ahve multiple copies of, so I could sell those off, and keep at least one original for myself...and when I die, leave them to a library or museum or somewhere worthwhile...maybe leave individual ones to special people in my life...)

I meant old model. Not old as in used.

@Draug

Yeah, I understood you. I don't think that is the old model is it? It's not the touch version, but it's the newest non-touch version.

Old tech. Touch and Fire are new tech. You can dress it up, but it is still old tech. It has WiFi only (no 3G), and you have to accept the ads to get the $79 price or it is $109. So not a valid comparison against the WiFi+3G version that was the standard for so long. I don't have to deal with banner ads on the bottom of my books.

That's a good point.

I don't really consider 3G and touch to be value-added for an ereader, so I didn't really consider the other one as old.

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eReader-eBook-Reader-e-Reader-Special-Offers/dp/B0051QVESA/ref=amb_link_358864142_2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=1TZQNJRSKX9QW0M6GFDR&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1331677622&pf_rd_i=507846

Go to the bottom to see a comparison of all the Kindles. The DX is still $379. The price drop is artificial as they reduced the screen size, took away the 3G, and added banner ads. No thanks.

I'd consider the DX, but the price is outrageous.

But, if you don't use those features, it doesn't matter if the price drop is "artificial." My sony ereader doesn't even have wifi, but it works just fine.

You can't say "Look the price dropped" and compare it to an entirely different animal. Look the price dropped on that Chevrolet! Th old one was a Corvette and the new one is a Aveo. No comparison. That's the point. The price dropped because the features were removed, the screen size was reduced, the memory was reduced to only 2 GB, the battery life was reduced from 2 months to 1, the keyboard was gotten rid of, but no touch screen was added to take it's place, and they added banner adds to cover the difference.

I just want it made clear that the price didn't actually drop. The released a cheap version lacking the features. The made an Aveo line much cheaper than the forerunners: the Corvette, Camaro, Malibu, and Impala.

The screen size hasn't changed. The device is smaller because they got rid of the keyboard.

@Draug

You are right; I should compare like products. As I said, I don't use any of the features they removed, so to me, it just seemed like a drop in price. But, that's not a very good way to explain a product to someone.

However, the price *has* gone down. The original kindle sold for $399 and the newest version (with the same features) is now $139. That's a big drop in price.

geofram, those posts really did seem out of left field, and I don't understand why you would so stridently demand that people ignore those advantages books do have (which you made no attempt to rebut) and join you in condemning them. It's a trade off. Why does that make you so angry?
Anyway -- very eloquent posts, obi.

And considering the cost of having a book printed both before and immediately after Guttendberg's movable typeset press, the price of books has dropped relatively speaking. Used to be only the rich could afford a book of any sort and a large library was a sign of extreme wealth. Now even Obi can afford a modest library of his favorite titles.