Kindle Klamor!

Sure, there's a slew of naysayers out there--see E-reader revolt: I'm leaving youth culture behind:-- "At 26, I'm part of a generation raised on gadgets, but actual books are something I just refuse to give up" and the discussion that elicited, but here's the deal: no one's asking anyone to give up anything. It may come to that somewhere down the road, but for inveterate book accumulators (accumulators, not collectors) such as myself, the Kindle (or e-readers in general) is a godsend. Sometimes I just want to read the damn book; I don't necessarily need the object itself, though I do want to access it whenever the mood strikes (libraries are nice but they aren't convenient like that).

Art and photography books, those ludicrously-expensive-but-sensuously-bound volumes of classic literature (which can be art objects in and of themselves), signed editions, heirloom and/or tomes with sentimental value, etc., these are well-worth owning in dead tree format. Stephen King's latest? Well, I want to read it, but I don't need it taking up shelf space (or, as is becoming the case more and more often, floor space).

One thing that particularly interests me is how many otherwise difficult-to-find out-of-print books are being re-released in e-formats by the original authors when their publishers no longer care about them (the books and the authors).

 Anyway, I've got a Kindle, I've got a few e-books, and, for the moment, I'm a very happy man.