You would have imagined that a product aimed at bookworms would have been given a better, slightly less biblioclastic sounding name. Books have been kindled throughout history, although only two instances spring immediately to mind: the Nazi bonfires of the 1930s and the burning of the Satanic Verses by Islamofascists in 1988. (An irreverent thought springs to mind: were the latter incident to have taken place today, would the bearded ones have gone to the vast expense of buying lots of electronic ‘readers’, downloading Rushdie’s novel and then burning them?) One wonders at what temperature Amazon’s Kindle kindles – presumably not at Fahrenheit 451.
Of course, electronic gadgets are incredibly attractive … and they remain so for at least a week or so after purchase. When confronted with the choice of a brand new Kindle or a musty second-hand book, one’s inner Caliban reaches out for the digital device, primitive hairy digits trembling with barely restrained excitement. The nasty horrid book isn’t shiny white; it doesn’t have buttons for turning pages or for making annotations; being made from paper, it can’t boast an incredible paper-like screen; and it certainly doesn’t have any USB ports.
Having gazed unenthusiastically at his free copies of ‘classic’ books, Caliban tries not to dribble too much over his new toy as he struggles to download one of the many best sellers available from the Amazon site. Now that he has spent some $489 on the Kindle, he is in the fortunate position of being able to buy electronic books at only $9.99 a copy. Ignoring the Kindle Store’s basic economics section, Caliban turns to popular fiction. Maybe, The Da Vinci Code will be easier to read with a paper-like screen. He reaches for his credit card.
Ariel gazes sadly at the neglected non-virtual second-hand book, The Essays of Joseph Addison. Despite having been published in 1898, there has been no battery failure and it is working surprisingly well. Even the marginalia-feature is still functioning perfectly – the book has been liberally annotated in copperplate handwriting by its extremely erudite Victorian first owner. Ariel turns a page with almost as little effort as Caliban clicks away at his buttons and considers how amazing it is to acquire a completely wireless entertainment device for a mere £2.
