January 17, 2013

• On Fire with My Kindle: Reading Again

  READING AGAIN

  

  In my yard, downloading free books to my Kindle wirelessly!

   

  The 1960 George Pal version of H.G. Wells "The Time Machine", includes the following exchange. George, the time traveler, arrives in the year 802,701. He is amazed by the idyllic world of the future. But puzzled by the lack of communication among this world's denizens. He has a need to find out what happened.
  The Time Traveler: "Do you have any books?"
  Young Eloi man : "Books? We have books."
  The young Eloi man leads George to the rotting remains of a library. He picks up a book and it crumbles in his hands.

  Around 2001 or so, I read an article in a magazine somewhere about rapidly increasing electronic book technology. In a conversation with my roommate Joel (who was not yet Cancerboy) I predicted the "death of paper" and surmised that in "the future" we would get our reading matter electronically. The Time Machine movie supposed "talking rings" which replaced the rotting books shown to George. The film "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" had just come out, and the newspapers in the film seemed to be somewhat "electronic" with photos that moved, and articles which updated themselves. (Perhaps this isn't entirely true in the Potter universe, but I took the idea from the article I read and ran with it.)

  Joel visibly cringed. "I hope I'm not around in a world where we don't have books."

  During the year, best selling author Stephen King, whom I'd been reading since my college days when he published his first book, "Carrie", published an electronic book called "Riding the Bullet" which could only be read on a computer. Joel was really upset about this. I embraced the idea of reading on an electronic device. I liked to read authors like James Michener, Irving Wallace, (and King). Some of the books I read even in paperback were quite large and couldn't really be called "pocket books." Every time I showed Joel another advancement in electronic reading, he would cringe even more. I'd had my personal computer since 1997. Before that I owned a Brother word processor (a typewriter with a screen and a 3.2 floppy drive to electronically save one's writing.) Joel wouldn't own one or even look at my computer. He spent a lot of time at the Torrance Library, a favorite hangout for both of us.

  Joel was one of those guys who had a need to read. He read the backs of breakfast cereal boxes when he was a kid. I was pretty much the same type, although I was more physically active than Joel when I was a child. I could be found during a lot of recesses sitting under a tree way back in the schooyard reading a book, however. I still love to read.

  In elementary school, I outgrew the "Dick and Jane" books almost as soon as I opened their covers. I was reading at sixth grade level in first grade. I was introduced to the library, like a lot of kids, in the second grade. By sixth grade, I was reading adult novels. ("Studs Lonigan" by James T. Farrell, was recommended to me by my mother! It has some pretty racy scenes in it!) I didn't go through a "young adult" period really. I favored Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Charles Dickens. Masters of literature. I was one of few kids in my high school English classes who were always called upon by the teacher to read out loud to the class. Joel and I didn't meet till we were both in our 20s. He devoured sci fi and fantasy. He read the "Fire and Ice" novels by George R.R. Martin long before anyone thought of making a TV series called Game of Thrones.

  While living with Joel in the early aughts, I found myself reading less and less physical books, and more and more stuff on the computer and on the internet. I ran poetry groups and engaged in the nascent social networking scene. I created my website to showcase my talents in writing and the arts. I joined Xanga in 2004, and for a while, most of what I read were blogs, since I wrote one. Joel's nose was always in a physical book.

  The Amazon Kindle was introduced in 2007.

  My roommate died of cancer in 2008. He is not around in a world where physical books are fast being replaced by the electronic ones.

  I predicted, along with the proliferation of electronic media, which is still pretty much in it's infancy, that when I finally got my hands on an e-reader, I'd read more. When I mentioned e-readers online and in blog entries, I'd get comments from readers like Joel, who still wouldn't embrace the technology, and "liked the feel of paper". Don't get me wrong. Books, with thick or paper covers, and pages which you can actually turn, will never go away. They will, like the vinyl record album, make sporadic comebacks, until they become legacy museum pieces, and specialized items sold on ebay for vast amounts of money in the "collectibles" section. I don't care about "paper" however. It's the words which have always enchanted me, whether in print in a book, newspaper, or on a computer screen.

  I waited till the Kindle approached and surpassed the tablet computers offered by Apple. I had my eye on a Kindle Fire since they came out with this "tablet" style version, much better than a mere e-reader. It is the Apple iPad of course which started the tablet computer revolution, it it was a natural progression for the Kindle e-reader to eventually morph into a tablet. Desktop computers (of which I've owned more than I can remember without actually looking up the amount, since 1997) are like dinosaurs. Notebooks are even on their way out. Touch is the new technology. Graduating from smart phones (which I've never owned) to tablets is a natural progression. Tablets are getting smaller ((iPad mini: 7"). Some smartphones are being developed with 5" screens! Keyboards are getting smaller. (They're "apps" on a tablet or e-reader, and now bluetooth enabled physical keyboards can be wirelessly "attached" to the tablet to create a small notebook like computer. Windows 8 is merely an attempt to capitalize on Apple's iOS and Google's Android touchscreen operating systems, found in smart phones, tablets, and the Kindle. There are multiple versions of the Kindle, including a "paperwhite" version which has no visible glare from the screen. I haven't replaced my aging desktop, but this last Christmas (armed with a $100.00 Amazon gift certificate I won in a raffle at our company Chirstmas party, I got myself a Kindle HD with 8.9 " screen, and 32gigs of storage.

  There are so many "apps" available that I'm not even treading water in that area yet. I can use my HBO Go to watch movies in full 1080p on the smallish screen. (But they're so sharp they look terrific.) I can visit websites, and with my bluetooth enabled full keyboard, I can even add and edit blog entries. My new Kindle arrived on December 26th. I immediately "purchased" (for free) an e-book called Mastering the Kindle Fire. It gave me pointers on which free apps to download, and easily guided me on how to download my own photos and music files to my Kindle. (It even told me about a browser, which unlike the "Silk" browser embedded in the device, would allow me to play Flash files , but I'm not there yet.)

  Within a few days, I'd downloaded quite a few free books. I liked having the complete works of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens on this easy to handle device. The library started to get bigger. Eventually, I wandered over to the part of the Amazon Kindle Store where current fiction and non fiction is sold. I bought Stephen King's novel "11/22/63". I love the idea of serendipity. Stephen King is an early favorite author of mine who writes long novels. (853 pages for 11/22/63). He published the first e-novel back in the early aughts. The novel is about time travel. (The last physical book I read, this past summer, is Jack Finney's "Time and Again" also about time travel.) (It might also be noted that MY first novel written in high school is a time travel tome as well.)

  Some people spend their time playing games on Facebook. Some read a lot of books. Some watch TV or play video games. Some of us blog. I'm still blogging, and since this is the year I turn 60, (I'm calling 2013 my "benchmark" year) I seem to be reinvigorated and feel a lot young. (One of my "birthday poems" is entitled "30 by the Time I'm 60") I've been on so many "photo expeditions" this year (and the month of January is only half over) that I've got four Photoposts already backpiled to post on Xanga! I've joined the social club at the mobile home park where I live. I'm excited about all kinds of possibilities afforded me with my "wireless mobile device" which seems to go everywhere I do. (They have to start making pockets on shirts a LOT bigger.) The neatest thing though, is that I'm reading again. Since I began King's "11/22/63" in late December, I've finished 52% (445 'pages': the Kindle Fire shows how many pages in the "real" book one has read, in case they're in a book club and want to compare notes with other readers) of the book. I'm downloading like crazy. My "digital" pile of books is pretty large.

  I'm reading again. And I couldn't be happier. If somebody could be called "old school" it's me. Heck, I STILL don't own a cellphone. But I have an e-reader extraordinaire, and because of it, I'm reading again. (Sadly, I may not be reading too many blogs, but I've been doing that for most of the last decade, and sometimes Xanga just seems like a hotbed of controversy.)

  I trust Joel is reading something up in heaven.

  At work I hate "paper". Too many copies of too many documents which I can store on my puter in pdf files. I still have a vast library of physical books. I still read them. But I don't necessarily like the "feel of the book in my hand" when it weighs a ton, and is difficult to move around. My Kindle now has 21 "books" on it's "bookshelf". It also has over 3000 songs and 5000 photos on it's hard drive. I don't need to worry about backup either, everything I get from Amazon (the majority of the books, these guys are REALLY smart) are stored on Amazon's "cloud drive" as well. (So are the mp3 song files I buy from them, natch.)

  Perhaps in heaven people memorize the words in the books like at the end of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451". Maybe the angels have a bookstore alongside the music store where they get their harps? I hope Joel is as happy as I am, reading whatever he's reading in the cosmic arena.

  Got to go now. I'm itching to read what's on the next "page" of my e-book. And itching to experience the next phase of my wonderful life. I mentioned this in an earlier entry here on Xanga or on FB: A couple of weekends ago I went over to the Torrance Library and asked them if they have e-books to lend yet. They're thinking about it, and do have plans for Kindle owners to be able to "check out" e-books. While I was there, I roamed the stacks, like I haven't done but used to do on a pretty regular basis. I saw lots of books I wanted to check out right then and there. Seeing books in the stacks which I may have checked out decades ago was thrilling, to say the least. However, being able to someday access these same books electronically at the very instant I'm thinking about reading them is even more thrilling.

   COMING SOON: Maneuvering through the Kindle's vast apps library (no games for the Mikester) and more observations about using a touchscreen tablet for the first time.

   REQUIRED READING: An Essay Detailing the Writing Process from 2005

  E-Book Wikipedia article (includes history of ebooks)

  The Time Machine (1960) imdb page

  Posted: January 16, 2013 8:16 AM

  • 12:47 pm
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