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KINDLY

That's not this /ˈkīn(d)lē/, but /ˈkindly/.

Yup.

The Kindle arrived on Thursday.

Exciting.

Great packaging.

I put it together.

Plug it in and hit "on". Bang.

A really well designed tutorial got me past the "english" choice and into a short demo about the home page and a few other things.

Like most devices now, there is no manual. Nothing on paper.

I am used to that now and started to work through the on-line material.

The Kindle Store is very nicely set up on Amazon.

They also, wisely, sent me some demos and suggestions even before I got the machine. I had some dry runs. But there is only so much you can do without the actual thing in hand.

Of course, I went to see which ones were free. A lot. But not many I really wanted. More about this later.

The mechanics, turning pages, using fingers instead of keyboards is rather intuitive and, while not a veteran with other handhelds, I figured most of it out and was able to navigate nicely.

I figured out most of it and with a bit of hiccuping I was able to download my first book.

I decided on "first things first". Others in recovery will understand. Went to download the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous basic text. And it was not available on line.

AA restricts the availability of the Book very carefully and I had read that except for bootlegged versions, nothing was available electronically. But, they have allowed the much loved Second Edition. I decided that was good enough and got it for nothing.

The first 164 pages have never changed from the very very beginning even though we are now in the Fourth Edition so, the basics are there, when and where I want them.

What next?

I had just read a review of Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman by Jeremy Adelman. This is a book I would have bought hard copy. A great man with a fascinating story. So I went on line to Amazon and bought the kindle version.

Voila! Amazon already knew me from the past, had registered my Kindle automatically, and gladly took my money and downloaded the book.

This was a more expensive book, I spent 22 bucks, only 8 or 9 off but this is a highbrow blockbuster. Done.

I used it to learn how to turn pages, use the highlight dictionary and other stuff. Not bad.

Then I looked into the lending library which has a deal for one book at a time for 70 a year. Steep. But we will see. I decided to order The Hunger Games and it downloaded immediately, no waiting as someone had said will occur.

After that I downloaded a book I had wanted for quite awhile but it had only been available on line. Matthew Mitchum's Twists and Turns. Mitcham is the gay champion diver who caused a sensation at the Beijing Olympic games. I had been pissed that I couldn't get it in a real book, had heard it "might" be coming out that way and was lying in wait for that event. Evidently the new thing is to try out some new books as e-books only and if they do well, make some hard copies.

So, I took some glee in downloading this one too. And, noted that they had just come out with the paperback. This one was 11.99, not 9.99, the price we hear about most frequently.

I think perhaps what we have heard is less true when it comes to the specifics.

My guess is that they are doing something like "airline" charging. Demand pricing. Higher demand, higher pricing. The "desire" thing.

Then. I am not sure why. I checked into some classics, publicized as "often at no cost". I decided on Anna Karenina as I had just read an appreciation of this book and had seen the unsatisfying new film adaptation. My rule has been not to read films of books I have read or read books of movies I have seen. But in this case, having never read the "great classic" and felt that seeing the film was pretty thin tea, I decided to buy that one.

It is also the only "classic" that came to mind.

I am not an appreciator of "classic". In college, I took 20th Century American as my primary focus, really drilling down through the canon from term to term and ending in what were essentially graduate seminars.

I suppose you can say that I am ignorant of classics although, as a teenager, I had read almost all the available "Modern Library" published by Random House. Or all that I could buy in Wykoffs, the smallish county seat department store in Stroudsburg, PA.

Some of the Russians, even, but Dostoevsky not Tolstoy. I liked the dark stuff and stayed with it.

So Anna, it is/was. They have four or five of them. Translations.

I had to look that one up. I ended up with what they described as Anna Karenina (best Translation, explanatory Notes, perfect Navigation, Illustrated) (Best Russian Classics). Translated by the Maudes who knew the man. I had read that the Penguin version was also very good but that is not available on line.

Finally, and bring it all up to date, I just read the review of my man Collum McCann's new novel TransAtlantic: A Novel. Redundantly titled although McCann has one or two non-fiction books.

12.99 for this one. About ten bucks less.

But I did not get the Kindle for the bargains.

So.

I am making this a very long post.

What next?

How about reading something?

Isn't this why I got the thing?

Good question. Yes. It is.

But let me point out that this is not atypical buying behavior in the realm of books or anything else.

I get what I want when I want it and, in the case of books, make no distinction between soft and hard cover. If the soft is available, OK. I will even buy "used" sometimes.

The books I want come in spurts of inspiration or awareness or publishing date.

I read at a different pace. Usually two or three at a time. Often a non-fiction, a fiction and something else.

But here, I am in transition. I still have a few hard cover books to work through. I figure that I will mix these in but begin by taking the plunge with the Kindle.

I am in the middle of Lopate's Portrait Inside my Head, a book of essays. On Friday, I finished the Alan Furst first novel (!!) I was reading for the fourth time with great enjoyment/

I was ready to jump in. Am ready. And have started into the Kindle. The Adelman biography and the Mitcham autobiography. I need to decide on one fiction. Not ready yet.

The Kindle will go to the gym with me Monday.

One other thing.

I tried to want the NYTimes on the machine but it will not work for me. The Kindle version is only partial and I can't get the reading experience I want on the small screen. I am wed to the almost hard copy version of the thing.

What about the reading experience? So far it is quite amazingly smooth transition. Easy to read, to handle, to "work" with.

I am glad that I have done this and am looking forward to the experience. I am about to commit fully I think.

Diving in. Show me how Matt!

Labels: books