I read books, and most people in my circles read books. I would read a lot more books if I weren’t concerned about how much space they take up, so I’m definitely looking at the Kindle, which is sold out for some time in the future.

Huh, I spend so much time on the Internets yet I have not yet heard of the Kindle. Now that I look upon it, I’m not so impressed and wouldn’t buy it personally.

I did not bat an eye at the 40%–seems possible, if not probable. The reading that most people do is not in books. Bookies could easily be much less than 60% of the American public.

Reading books is going out slowly. Many generations of librarian/reading teachers/etc have been lamenting an end to reading–perhaps starting with comic books, but certainly their equivalent in every generation (Captain Underpants). Let’s face it, people (lay people) have had novels and substantial non-fiction tomes in their hands for only a few hundred years. Before that it was all poetry and scripture. Before that oral. In fact, reading killed the oral tradition. Literacy is to blame for our collective inability to recite the Illiad, Shakespeare, and non scripture-mastery scriptures. So sad. The end of the world? No.

Steve Jobs loves to hate everything not made by Apple with the exception of the VW Beetle. Though I did spot him once in a Boxster on 101…

The Kindle is a horribly ugly device and that alone is enough to make Steve hate it.

I haven’t played with one but I have played with the Sony which has the same screen. I was incredibly distracted by the fact that the screen does not clear completely when you advance the page. The words of the previous page appear as faint ghosts in the background of the current page. This was very distracting to me but perhaps most people would not notice it.

Well, The Kindle wouldn’t be my first choice for reading, but I can think of a few places it would be easier than a book (a treadmill?) so, if I had unlimited funds, I might try it. I’m just not an audiobooks kind of person.

It doesn’t matter to Amazon if people read books, only that they buy them.

I would expect that the person who purchases a Kindle would be a bit of a gadget-freak and wouldn’t need one more standalone device to try and pack along with their laptop, cell-phone, iPod, etc.

It makes more sense to integrate that kind of function into another computer or handheld device that does other things as well. Just my take on things …

I read a ton but I agree with Jobs. This is a niche product at best.

Our primary had a survey where the parents had to interview their children (this for future “spotlight” introductions). I got a chance to look at the papers. Maybe 30% of the kids had comic books or didn’t have a favorite.

I’m proud to report that my eldest daughter (who refused to let me interview her but filled it out herself) put “The Tempest” as her favorite.

I’m with silverrain – give me a book in the hand anyday over a screen. I was in Newark Airport today and saw it advertised – touting the fact that the Kindle could hold something like 80 books. Who cares – I only read 1-3 at any one time. Why do I need 80 books on it?

I found these statistics here, but couldn’t trace the provided sources.

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.

I wonder about the loanability of Kimble books, or the second hand market. I don’t like it — it reminds me of UltraWord from Jasper Fforde‘s The Well of Lost Plots.

I think 40% of Americans never read a book anyway. I don’t think that’s anything new.

I’m a book Nazi and pretty appalled when people tell me they don’t read, but I meet people all the time who don’t. Maybe about 40%.

Those 60% of us, though, I don’t think we’re going to quit reading books any time soon. That’s a lot of people. Isn’t that more people than vote in the elections?

nasamomdele,

You should see the screen of the Kindle before making blanket statements. The e-ink technology is high contrast and can be read in any environment in which you could read a typical paperback. I’d go even further and state that it has the potential to be more readable than a paperback because you can increase the font size.

I have one complaint about the screen, which I listed above, but anybody who thinks it is like reading off a laptop or even an iPhone should see the e-ink in person before rendering judgment.

Two things would make it worth it to me: solar recharge of the batteries and/or power and handwriting recognition so you could write into it and it would convert your words to type. That way I could write stories from anywhere. (And maybe I’d actually keep a journal that way.)

Reading is for losers.