Books as Kindling

Mack Hall

Amazon.com is selling its Kindle II, and most of us have never even seen its predecessor, the Kindle I.

The Kindle is a small, light, flat electronic gadget that displays a book one page at a time on its 6" diagonal screen. The real utility of this device is that, according to Amazon, it can store approximately 1,500 books. The number would vary because Peter Rabbit and The City of God, each a book of wisdom in its own way, differ in size.

The Kindle II as advertised by Amazon.com costs $359.00, which includes a one-year warranty with a one-time I-dropped-it protection. A leather Kindle cover – in case you fear you might drop the thing a second time – is $29.99. A two-year extended warranty, which really means only one year following the first year, is $65. Guts, feathers, and all, then, a fully kitted-out and protected Kindle II is $453.99.

Now you’re ready and rarin’ to read, right?

Whoa, pardner; don’t polish those bi-focals just yet.

You’ve bought only the book-holder-thingie. Now you have to buy a book for it. That’s right – this pricey revolution in reading books doesn’t include a book.

Amazon.com offers some 245,000 titles for over-the-air download, most – not all – for $9.99.

Buying a Kindle, then, is rather like paying forty or fifty dollars for a coffee cup at BigBuck’s and then having to pay another couple of dollars for some coffee to put into it.

And while you are buying your cup of coffee and your back is turned someone else will help himself to your Kindle while ignoring the unguarded paperback at the next table.

There are a few people who will pay a great deal of money for the Kindle simply because it is a fashion and they want to be seen to be sporting the latest. For most of us, $350 for a shiny book-holder-thingie that will surely suffer the fragility and mortality of all electronics seems a poor investment. Besides, in a year or two such devices will probably be on sale in a bubble-package at the supermarket checkout, and the downloads will be a few dollars each.

Oppressors won’t like electronic reading devices such as the Kindle because they will make burning books more less theatrical. Instead of tossing each book into a jolly bookfire while chanting "Saint Augustine, we burn you! We burn you!" and "Beatrix Potter, we burn you! We burn you!" the GooberTroopers will be burning only one plastic gadget:

"Comrade Brother UberPhartenFuhrer Smith, why isn’t there a bigger fire?"

"I’m sorry, Comrade Brother UberDooberFuhrer Jones; we found only one Kindle. We had to beat up a reactionary fourth-grader to get it away from her."

"Well, just rake it out of the fire and throw it in again."

"The fourth-grader, mein Comrade Brother UberdooberFuhrer?"

"No, no, no, we burn books only; destroying children is the prerogative of the new Director of Health and Human Services."

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