Audiobook Uk
2011
Will Digital Books Replace Printed Books?
Was it not a sign of the times that Dan Brown’s latest bestseller The Lost Symbol sold more of the Kindle version in the first two days than the hardback version. Admittedly, the Kindle version was cheaper ($9.99 compared with the hefty price of $29.95 for the hard copy). Yet we must agree that this is indicative of the fact that eBooks are daily increasing in popularity.
The Kindle, sold by Amazon, is a device that allows you to purchase and download a copy of just about any book or magazine in its 350,000 volume library. The book can then be read at the reader’s leisure. The device is just five inches by eight by .3 inches in size and boasts that the battery will last days before a recharge is needed.
Some were no doubt scared away by the initial price tag of $400, yet Amazon now says it will sell nearly 200,000 units by the end of the year. It will help that the price of the Kindle dropped 35% to $259, and $279 for the unit that works abroad. And for those concerned about the machine crashing and losing the books they have purchased, Amazon promises that the books are backed up on their servers.
Though the type size of the Kindle can be made larger or smaller, Amazon has now produced the Kindle 2, the Poppa Bear of eBook readers. The screen is 9.7 inches diagonally, which is about the size of notebook paper. It too is just .3 inches thick, has an equally impressive battery life, and contains 3.3 gigs of memory (up to 3,500 books storage). It sells for $489 at present. Both units have a read aloud feature though the voice is certainly inferior to the quality of a professionally done audiobook.
Neither Kindle is dependent on a Wi-Fi network to get access to the library, for they operate on a 3G network like a cell phone. As their ad states, a reader may hear about a book and be reading it in 16 shades of gray with less than a minute passing. Magazines or newspapers are available before they arrive on the newsstand. Another nice feature is the Kindle’s access to an online dictionary. If you encounter an unfamiliar word in a text, you can use the scroll wheel to select the line in question and look up the meaning.
Apple has entered the competition with a free iPhone or Touch application called Stanza with which an owner has access to a number of book sources including both free books and best sellers. Barnes & Noble eReader does the same through their store though, at last report, overprices the books. An application called Kindle for iPhone is also available. The Touch and iPhone are not as large as even the smaller Kindle but the monitor is in color (which helps with pictures and some charts), the type size can also be adjusted, and, for about the same price, the Touch can do much more than just provide books.
E-Book readers do have certain disadvantages however. For example, you paid for the book but you cannot share it with others as you could a hard copy. Though having many books at your fingertips is great, you can’t write in the margins or give them as presents for special occasions. You can never be too far from a power source, and, its cost means you have lost a great deal more if it is lost of stolen than you would lose in one book. Though you don’t need a giant print version of anything, neither can you pass down a book treasure to future generations. (Imagine Princess Bride beginning with the grandfather reading a Kindle version of the story!)
Paper and ink books many decline in popularity, but it will be a long time before purists will concede them as being a worthy replacement. The smell and feel of a book is simply not replaceable by an electronic machine.
If you have a treasured volume you would like to preserve, consider the hand bookbinding services of Tightly Bound Books. They’re not only professional, but friendly, too. As their motto states, they provide “Custom book repair with personal care.”
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