[New-Poetry] Kindle 2

Thu Mar 5 13:27:58 EST 2009

Hey Jeff--

I'm a luddite as well!  No TV, no microwave.

And I have to agree with you that nothing replaces books (at least not now). 

Like I said at the beginning of this discussion when Anny posed a question about the Kindle: it's great for travel and commuting and the backyard or beach. I think I use it about 10-20% and, the rest of the time, I still read regular books. At this point, my Kindle (which a prized possession) has not replaced the thousands of books that crowd my little shack in the canyon.  It's an additional tool that, for me, is surprisingly useful.

For someone who travels or goes on residencies or who has a long commute on a train, and wants to take decent reading material along, it's a great, light-weight tool.  

Before I left for Spain, I downloaded most of the books I needed for my writing project (those that were not avail thru Amazon, I shipped in a box). I also downloaded literary blogs, the Irish Times, the London Times and a bank of book reviews and The New Yorker.  Since in EU whisper net is not available, I figured I would load up.  It made my trip a lot lighter!  And I felt rather stocked up on reading material in the airports I managed to be stuck inside.

For me the Kindle (at this point) is to books as a bicycle is to a car.

Cheers,

Millicent 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com>
Sent: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 10:06 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Kindle 2

Me?  I20doubt I'll ever own one of these things.  I'm still saving for a 1972 Fender Telecaster Reissue, and in this economy, that guitar is becoming more pipe dream and less something I'll actually own.

But I'm and odd duck.  I like the visceral quality of owning a book--the feel of the pages, the smell of the ink, the slight variances in font and spacing.  I guess because I edit a college magazine, I'm attuned to such qualities, though I doubt that I'm alone.

I also like browsing in real bookstores, even if they are huge stores like Borders or B&N.  I like picking up different books, paging through them, and skimming the contents.  I like the subtle surprise of finding a book I'd not hear of, picking it up off the shelf, and being captivated.  I like looking at covers and feeling the different kinds of textures that books have.

I suppose that I'm an odd one, but (again) I refuse to believe that I am alone.

If I ever owned a Kindle, it would be in addition to the books I own and will continue to buy.

Ye olde luddite,
Jeff Newberry

On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 12:53 PM, Millicent Accardi <millb at aol.com> wrote:

It's the same thing (to me) as sitting in a bookstore and leafing through a book I may want to buy. 

.. . .Yeah, Kindle is not perfect. Yeah, Amazon is a business not a university and needs to make money. Yeah, it's not like a mortar and pestle book store, but I think that being able to read or review a T of C and sample chapt
ers is a very useful feature.  I actually LIKE being able (in the quiet of my own home) to read sample chapters before I spend money on a book!  In bookstores I always feel as if I am sneaking around doing that.

Cheers,

Millicent 

-----Original Message-----
From: Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>
To: Millicent Accardi <millb at aol.com>
Cc: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu

Sent: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 9:46 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Kindle 2

That's great, Mill. Nothing can save you money like sample chapters of
a book you meant to buy.

Hal

On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Millicent Accardi <millb at aol.com> wrote:

Hi Hal

You can see sample chapters at Amazon too. If you don't have a Kindle.

Cheers,

Millicent 

-----Or iginal Message----- 

From: Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>

To: Millicent Accardi <millb at aol.com>
Cc: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Sent: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 9:15 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Kindle 2

Very hard work--when you don't have a Kindle, though.

Hal

On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 11:04 AM, Millicent Accardi <millb at aol.com> wrote:

It may be a lot of work but you CAN download sample chapters on Kindle to see which edition you are getting.

Although Kindle has a lot of blogs and popular novels, there is a fair amount of literary (new literary fiction) offered.

At this point, Kindle is still in the early stages.  when I got mine over a year ago, I was lucky there were a few hun
dred books, now, there is a lot larger selection. Now, Kindle is not the NY Public Library or Gutenberg, but it does have potential. 

Cheers,

Millicent 

-----Original Message-----
From: Halvard Johnson <halvard at gmail.com>
To: Skip Fox <skip at louisiana.edu>
Cc: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp,Views <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 8:06 am
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Kindle 2

Quite so. I checked out Chekhov among its Kindle books and couldn't even tell
who'd done the translations.

Hal

On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Skip Fox <skip at louisiana.edu> wrote:

My problem with Amazon Books (that they sometimes are not easy to search and that they often give too little information about the books contents and/or edition) is exasperated with Kindle Books.  Which edition is best of Moby Dick? Are there truncations? I.e., are you reading a good version of the book, or have the editors’ “fixed” Dickinson’s punctuation and capitalization (as Perrine and Arp did in a freshman text and as the Barnes & Noble version of her poems...  

=0 A 

The designation of Kindle Edition or Kindle Book does not give me confidence. 

This is not a minor problem. Sometimes Amazon just says four novels by an author without telling which. 

Their customers for Kindle seem to be probably readers of popular fiction, not those who are concerned about the text they are getting20(like writers and sch
olars). And the Amazon Kindle operation seems like a vendor which is not overly concerned with its product. 

That’s from looking over the list for about an hour so I could be wrong.

-- 
"A hypocrite is a person who--but who isn't?"
      --Don Marquis

Halvard Johnson
================
halvard at gmail.com
http://sites.google.com/site/halvardjohnson/Home
http://entropyandme.blogspot.com 
http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
http://www.hamiltonstone.org

___________________
___________________________
ew-Poetry mailing list
ew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
ttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

Access 350+ FREE radio stations anytime from anywhere on the web. Get the Radio Toolbar! 

-- 

"A hypocri te is a person who--but who isn't?" 

      --Don Marquis
< br> Halvard Johnson 

================
halvard at gmail.com
http://sites.google.com/site/halvardjohnson/Home
http://entropyandme.blogspot.com 
http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
http://www.hamiltonstone.org

_______________________________________________
ew-Poetry mailing list
ew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
ttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

Access 350+ FREE radio stations anytime from anywhere on the web. Get the Radio Toolbar! 

-- 
"A hypocrite is a person who--but who isn't?"
      --Don Marquis

Halvard Johnson
================
halvard at gmail.com
http://sites.google.com/site/halvardjohnson/
Home
http://entropyandme.blogspot.com 
http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
http://www.hamiltonstone.org

_______________________________________________
ew-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
ttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

Access 350+ FREE radio stations anytime from anywhere on the web. Get the Radio Toolbar! 

_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

-- 
You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and experience, from which each according to his own immediate and peculiar needs may drawn his own conclusion. --W.H. Auden

_______________________________________________
ew-Poetry mailing list
ew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
ttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20090305/c739da87/attachment.html