I ran across this pretty good analysis of Amazon’s Kindle just after I ran across a cool new (to me anyway) book blog The Written Nerd. That Kindle post almost had me crying! To quote one line…
“Kindle combines your love of reading with your even bigger love of putting your book down so it can recharge for three hours.”
Amen!
I noticed a couple of days ago that the Friends of Independent Bookstores blog was down. All I get is a big blank error page whenever I visit. I was hoping it was just technical trouble. But it seems Larry Portzline has pulled the plug on his project to travel/support/raise awareness of the value of independent bookstores. For more than five years…
There’s a new book “lending” service in town… PaperSpine.com
It’s just like Netflix, except for books. That’s right. The monthly plans start at $9.95, you click which books you want to read, they mail them to you, you read and return, then they mail you the next one on your list.
It’s sounds a lot like a library, except this one you pay for. I guess there are some places in the country that have limited access to books, but I find it hard to believe that this new business will actually make any money. It just seems like a really bad idea. Some of this discussion has already crept up on PaperSpine’s blog.
Libraries, local bookstores, Amazon, chain bookstores, etc. they have a pretty good track record for getting books, cheaply into people’s hands. I just don’t see the “it worked for Netflix and movies, so it’ll work here” argument holding any water.
{via GalleyCat}
For the month of December, I’ll also be posting over at The Bham Terminal. It’s a hyper-local site that’s gaining steam here in Birmingham, AL and across the Southeastern U.S.
It looks like my bookish banter will fall in the Timetable section. I haven’t decided if I’ll cross-post or what. We’ll just have to see how it goes.
So check it out, before I do something wrong and cause that cool site to crash (though I’ll try not too)! There’s a lot of good info to crawl through for folks who live around these here parts.