In fact, it was on vacation that I began to become less of a curmudgeonly luddite about the things. They can be very handy for many computer chores not requiring a lot of keyboard use – e-mail, editing photographs, catching up on the latest CB posting, etc. . There is even a Kindle app, although I believe the Touch is more suited to dedicated reading.

I’ll buy a board-book for my gd, and then I get baby’s board books mixed in with my “regular” fare of selections for weeks (or until I *correct* the recommendation).

Or I’ll go on amazon to buy a pack of undies. You’d think amazon would know that I’m not a buyer for an apparel store, and that once I’ve, er, covered my immediate need for new undies, I won’t be needing anymore for a while. But, no…

The one that bugs me the most is when I buy the tenth in a series of some author’s books, and when my purchase history will show I’ve bought the eighth, ninth, and tenth in recent years.

Suddenly, I’m getting recommendations for the fifth, sixth, and first in the series. Now, if my amazon records showed that I’d ONLY bought the tenth in a series, I can see the utility, both ways, for recommending the first. I mean, it’s possible I’ve only recently discovered the author, didn’t realize I was jumping into the middle of a series, etc. It could be helpful to recommend earlier books in the same series.

But… Where it ought to be apparent (even to an algorithm in a computer) that I’m buying the series in order, then recommending earlier books in the series (or the paperback when amazon “knows” I bought the hardcover last year) is a waste of resources.

For some reason, though, they haven’t hired me to straighten them out on issues like this.

It’s actually the Kindle edition vs. paperback cost which has a certain appeal for me. I have reached a point where, even with books, stuff begins to own me, rather than the opposite. Like you, I have concerns about the income or profit distribution.

Also, despite suggestions from Amazon, I really do not think it matches the experience of noticing or discovering new books, authors, or titles just by scanning a bookshelf or section in a store.

The Fire is an altogether different animal. It’s not unfair to call it an Amazon Vending Machine, but if you spend a little time rounding up some third party applications, you can turn it into a fairly useful tablet. It’s biggest shortcoming, in my opinion, is the lack of a SD/microSD slot. The on-board memory isn’t huge, since Amazon is trying to steer customers to its cloud services. Ebooks don’t take up much space, so you could keep a fairly sizable library on the device, but apps will chew up that portion of the memory in a hurry. A microSD slot would have cost pennies to add to the device, and they have huge storage capacities these days.

The Fire’s web browsing works pretty well. In concept, I like the idea of shifting most of the heavy lifting of the browser back to the server side, but I don’t think that it makes a huge difference in speed compared to the Droid tablet version of Firefox. I haven’t done any systematic speed comparisons, though, and considering the number of devices in the house that are competing for WiFi bandwidth, it’s entirely possible that the browser itself isn’t the choke point.

The reading experience on the Fire is excellent. The sharper screen resolution compared to the e-ink screen, and the option to tweak the background color makes it easier on my eyes, and being able to read in low light is a big plus.

I’ve also found that video streaming (e.g. Amazon’s Prime videos) works very, very well, and their catalog of available titles is fairly broad and growing. I cancelled NetFlix before I got the Fire, so I can’t really speak to streaming other than Amazon’s service.

Amazon has also given Prime members the option of “borrowing” books, although that is currently limited to one book within a calendar month, and the lending catalog seems to be overly populated by titles such as “The Lusty Cowgirl” and “Passion in the Afternoon”. If that’s your thing, you’re set. I’d rather see more history and biography myself. (Also, a number of library systems around the U.S. are getting into the e-book lending game. The overall catalog of titles, as far as I can tell, is small but growing, and isn’t so replete with heaving bosom fiction.)

I do wish that the price of e-books would drop. In many cases, the e-book is very nearly the same cost as the paper version, and that’s a problem with the pricing model, in my opinion. I often find myself having to weigh the value of physical shelf space against the convenience of portability and the chance that the DRM on the e-books will render them inaccessible at some point. I’ll often choose the physical book in that situation, which rather defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. (I also tend to make margin notes in books that I read, and have a somewhat complex shorthand that has evolved through the years. That doesn’t work well in an e-book.) If I felt any confidence at all that the authors involved received more profit from an e-book than for a similarly priced paper copy, I wouldn’t have much of an issue, but as it is, I strongly suspect that the extra profit realized by not having to print, bind, and ship a paper book goes straight to the publishing house.

Does this provide some fuel for discussion?

Forgot to mention that I LOLed at this line…!

My initial difficulty with books and stories I have read before their being made into films remains worrying about the interpretation. A good film is likely to make me want to read the story and, perhaps, gain more from it. An enjoyable story, made into a film, sometimes loses too much.

Welcome back, CB. May you write more, before the Mayan doomsday ends us all.

Interesting review, and good to see you back at the keyboard! Have a great 2012!