I have now lived with a Kindle for six weeks. In my previous post, with the novelty of experience, I claimed that Kindle was just a book. I now know better.
It is certainly a neverending book, which was very practical while on travel. No problem with finishing a novel right in the middle of a transatlantic flight. Don't even have to open the overhead bin to take out another book of the huge portable library. Just browse through the e-library downloaded in the little thing and decide whether it's Mill on the Floss or Jude the Obscure next. I wonder how I've missed all these great books - me with my English degree. But I know I wouldn't have appreciated them so much when I was seventeen. Anyway, I would probably not have bought them all in printed versions and denied myself a great pleasure.
I have also discovered that Kindle is very convenient at the hairdresser's, instead of the silly glossy magazines.
When I read the Kindle manual, I was quite skeptical about the numerous options: highlight, take notes, look up words in a dictionary. But it so happened that I am writing an essay about a book which I read last year, didn't like and gave away. I am writing about it because it felt very good for my purpose. I tried to figure out whom I gave my copy to, but after the first three close associates denied it, I gave up. I bought a new copy - for Kindle. While I was at it, I decided to try all those wonderful options. Highly recommended for academic purposes. Everything I used to do with pencil and Post-Its, scribbles in the margins, exclamations marks - I can do with the Kindle copy. I highlight a quotation, and I can write a memo note or a comment. Then I can go through them all quickly. I can copy and paste quotes directly into my own text. Unfortunately, Kindle doesn't have the correct pagination. I believe that it will be a recurrent issue in future academic publications.
Now that I know how clever my Kindle is, I may try some other functions. I may even finally learn to look up words in a dictionary.
4 comments:
Jag skriver på svenska, för jag antar att det är ett av dina språk. Jag har väntat på en bra läsplatta i många år, men de som finns här har inte alls samma finesser som en Kindle. Tråkigt nog kan man tydligen inte läsa svenska böcker på den. Nog för att jag läser engelska böcker också, men svenska böcker ska läsas på svenska.Jag får väl vänta ytterligare några år, under tiden får jag vara avundsjuk på alla Kindle-ägare.
Jag hittade till din blogg genom att jag läser Julias.
Laila
Hej Laila, jag har svenska vänner som har läsplattor och läser svenska böcker med dem, men jag vet inte hur bra dessa är. Julia är mycket kunnig om all elektronik, fråga henne!
Jag läser ju numera på min iPad och jag kan låna böcker till den på mitt vanliga biblioteks ort. Jättebekvämt att ligga i sängen och läsa också!
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