Thursday, April 15, 2010

E-Readers by Christine Duncan

My daughter came to visit last week. Before she visited, she made sure to tell me that she had downloaded my book, Safe House to her iPhone. She liked the idea of having a book in her pocket, in case she got stuck somewhere boring. I was interested to hear that it was that aspect of e-books that she liked.
I like that too. But I also like the ability to bump up the font to make it easier to read. I don't know why someone doesn't market an e-reader specifically to those of us who are freakin' blind. The fact that e-books are usually cheaper doesn't hurt either.
I don't believe that the iPhone is the e-reader all of us have been waiting for. It's too expensive. Unfortunately, I don't think it's the new iPad either. But these things get people thinking. They start the process.
But as I told someone the other day, I'll know the e-reader has finally arrived when I can borrow one from the library, already loaded with the book to read, just as I can now with the Playaway audio players. Until then, I'll download to my little iPaq and dream.

3 comments:

Mark Troy said...

The libraries in our area loan Kindles with any ebook you request. You also get surprises because they come with previous downloads still on them.

Like your daughter, I have an ereader on my Droid phone because I like to be able to read something whenever I'm stuck. My phone has books by Sax Rohmer, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. My reader, which is called Aldiko, allows me to select from a multitude of fonts and sizes

I have an iPad and I'm excited about it because I can read books from the Apple store on the iBook app, the Kindle store on the Kindle app, and Project Gutenberg on some other apps. I prefer reading with the iBook app rather than Kindle because I like some of the features such as the double page layout, the bookmarking, and the page numbering.

I did encounter a problem with one ebook from the Apple store. It was a Lee Child novel and the publisher apparently forgot to put in the paragraph marks. Without paragraphing, I couldn't get past the first page.

L. Diane Wolfe said...

I think the iPad will change things, because it's far more than an eReader.
A friend has one and you can adjust the font size on the reader, too!

Christine Duncan said...

Mark, I want to live where you live! I would love to be able to borrow a Kindle from the library!