(07-24-2010, 06:33 AM)paigenumber Wrote: I don't read eBooks myself, but I think that's a great idea.
I second that: it
is a great idea.
It's taken me a while to warm up to the concept of the eBook. (For one, I still can't get used to pressing the shift key on the
second letter of a word!) I don't own a Kindle or other eBook reader, and my nature rebels against the idea of curling up in a hearth-warmed armchair with such an abomination. It just doesn't fit in with the cozy ritual of reading for me. No glorious cover art, no delicately acrid perfume of yellowed groundstock pages, no eminently legible offset text from the days when typesetters were specialists who practiced an art.
However . . . and having said all that, I also rebel at the fear of becoming a moldy fig. The truth is that eBooks are here, if not to stay, then at least to board with us for a while, and what's to be gained by keeping aloof? If the advent of the eBook does indeed offer a way to fill niches deserted by publishing houses (e.g., the Gothic Romance niche), then I'm certainly willing to give eBooks a whirl.
I'm aware that the Kindle uses ePaper and is not backlit, so there's no strain on the eyes (unlike trying to read a novel on the computer). So far, however, ePaper is black-and-white. Call me superficial, but I hope ePaper will evolve quickly into color, because a well rendered cover painting does so much to set the tone of a book. If eBook readers could more faithfully mimic the graphical aspects of real books, I'd be in more haste to use one.
