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BANG FOR THE BITE
You can't curl up with 'em in the bath, but if 10,000 Biters download a copy of David Sedaris' latest onto their e-readers rather than buying the hardback, we'll save about 85 trees.
COCKTAIL FACT
The oldest known printed book is actually the Diamond Sutra, printed in China about 587 years before the Gutenberg Bible.
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home › tip library › Electronic Books
Think the printing press is the best thing to happen to the written word?
The Bite
You might be write, but electronic book devices (aka e-book readers) aren't far behind. Digital readers make it easier, lighter, and more eco to carry everything Danielle Steele ever wrote anywhere you go. Now that's what we call movable type.The Benefits
- Turning the page on waste. E-books don't use paper or require fuel to ship, and it takes the same amount of energy to produce just four sheets of paper as it does to power a laptop for an hour (say, while you're downloading entire e-books).
- No more dog-eared pages. With e-books, you can easily track down your fave passages.
- 15th century book prices. (Well, cheaper after the initial investment, anyway.) With the Amazon Kindle reader, new NY Times best sellers cost about $10 (rather than the usual $20 and up), and classics are about $2.
- Picture book-easy reading. E-book readers allow you to change text size and adjust brightness, and unlike computer screens, you can use 'em even in direct sunlight sans glare.
- They're light as a bookworm. Weighing around 1/2 pound, you can take hundreds of books with you without straining those biceps.
Personally Speaking
To tell the truth, a lot of us love the smell of books and reading in the bath, but digi-readers are great for long vacations when we don't wanna lug five books (or one copy of War and Peace) with us on the plane.Wanna Try?
- Amazon Kindle - wirelessly download more than 140,000 titles, plus access blogs and newspapers; you can use it 30 hours before it needs charging ($359).
- Sony Reader - plug into your PC to download text formats like DOCs and PDFs; play music and read for about 20 hours before you need to charge it ($300).
Sep 05,2008
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Listen Up
I am essentially paid to read for a living, but I read at such a devastatingly slow pace that I pretty much can't get through books. Like, at all. People give me novels and say things like, "Oh, I read this in two days, it's an easy read." If I abandon all other free-time activities, they'll take me three weeks minimum to finish up.
So I've turned to the other kind of e-book to ease my pain: the audiobook. I download them from iTunes or borrow them from the library, and listen away. It's great when I'm commuting with my iPod, and though it still takes a little while to get through them (I can't make the guy speak any faster), it's definitely faster than me flipping pages, and I'm still saving resources.
-Senior Editor Mike...off to buy Howard Berg's new DVD...
So I've turned to the other kind of e-book to ease my pain: the audiobook. I download them from iTunes or borrow them from the library, and listen away. It's great when I'm commuting with my iPod, and though it still takes a little while to get through them (I can't make the guy speak any faster), it's definitely faster than me flipping pages, and I'm still saving resources.
-Senior Editor Mike...off to buy Howard Berg's new DVD...
Biter Comments...
I do agree that e-books have their advantages but USING A PUBLIC LIBRARY (sorry for the shouting) can be cost effective as well since the print resources are shared. Many personal copies of books, those in good condition and not out of date, can be "recycled" to areas of the country and world that are desperate for good books to read. Please contact me if you would like to donate used children's and young adult books to a worthy cause.
I wonder about the environmental footprint that goes into making a Kindle or other e-book (has anyone seen The Story of Stuff?). Has anyone done an environmental cost/benefit analysis of an e-book v. how many books one might download over its expected life (before it breaks or becomes obsolete . . .)? As an aspiring environmental bibliophile, I do try to use the library (ask about inter-library loans . . ). As noted above, libraries are both "the ultimate in recycling and important community resource."
That's reuse folks, not recycle. Sorry to nit-pick on the semantics, but reuse is a far more important and beneficial concept than recycling. E-book readers and paper books a like can be reused thousands of times, but recycling is an end-of-life one-time-deal.
I admit it, I like to read books. I guess it’s just the feeling of the pages between my hands. But, I have gotten very good at passing along those books to friends, to pass them along to their friends when they are through, etc, etc, etc. Or, as I did with my beloved collection of Bernstein Bear books as a ‘tween, I donate used books to my local library. I have a few favorites I can’t bear to part with, that I picked up on a trip, but I really like the idea of an e-reader and/or audio books. I drive an hour to work everyday (woo) so audio books are really helpful during the commute. (Although, on one trip, I nearly drove off the road to a really funny comedy book.)
I guess my point is that as long as you either pass old books along, or donate them when you’re through (or get them from the library in the first place) it’s not all bad. It's probably better for your eyes in the long run anyway :)
I don't think I'll ever part from the joy of reading a real, paper book, curled up in bed with my tea. But I do make an effort to go to the library, or if there are books that I have to have I go down to my local used bookstore (or rather, one of the many - I live in Seattle) or I bookmooch them.
You do realize it still takes electricity and battery power to read a book by electronic means. If the sun's up, that's all I need to read a paper book.
And yes that device is going to be obsolete some day. Probably in just a few years, the way things go.
And for $300, I can buy a LOT of used books, especially at a Friends of the Library sale.
sounds wonderful, pity its only available in the US. I live in South Africa, and we're a long way from having ebooks. Remind me, why is it that they don't come equipeed with solar panels on the back to charge whilst you read outdoors?
Sorry, but I like to hold an actual book in my hands. I'm at a computer all day for work, so I don't need another "screen" to tax my eyes, not to mention the high cost of "buying" electronic books. I buy used books primarily, and then recycle them to other readers, so I'm not adding to any paper waste. No Kindle in my future, although my husband would probably love to clear the space my books take up!
PHOTO ALBUMS
Posted by: Miss Mollie | September 05, 2008 at 09:48 AM