Margaret's Column

Yes, it would be handy to load several books onto one gadget, rather than lug around a backpack full. It would be cool to download newspapers and, ahem, blogs when you’re not actually at the computer. But I think that this, and any other electronic reader, are at best a supplement to the old-fashioned bound book; it’s not a replacement. I have several books that were printed more than forty years ago; my mother has some that were printed in the nineteenth century. I can take any of them off the shelf and read them; there are computer programs from a mere fifteen years ago that are obsolete.

Yesterday I made a list of ten of my favorite authors and checked the Kindle availability of their work. Here are the results:

Joy Chant-0

Arthur C. Clarke-7

Robertson Davies-0

Ursula K. LeGuin-short stories only

Doris Lessing-7

Naomi Novik-4

J.K. Rowling-0 (yes, that’s correct)

Dan Simmons-11

J.R.R. Tolkien-0

Sigrid Undset-1

Only Novik has her entire oeuvre available on Kindle.

After perusing the Kindle store, I concluded that this is geared mostly to people who read bestsellers rather than to true book fanatics; most of the books I checked on cost $9.99-more than a mass market paperback. Add this to the $350.00 cost of the Kindle itself and it looks like less than a bargain. Nor does the Kindle do graphics that well; so much for children’s picture books, art books, books on astronomy-anything that has lots of large color illustration

True bibliophiles don’t just read books, they have relationships with them. They understand that reading is a sensual activity, as well as a mental one. We love the feel of books in our hands, the touch of paper under our fingertips, the weight of a book propped on our raised knees when we sit up in bed to read. The sight of many different volumes lined up on a shelf. You will never replace that with a machine.

As for making my own books available, perhaps. No market should be written off. But I'm going to think long and hard about it.