New Meaning for Coffee Tables

We have a lot of books here at Chez Alexandre. Far too many, in fact. The shelves of our library, whether in the living room, the bedroom, or the hallway near the stairs, are the scene of stacks of one book upon another. Many come from yard sales or thrift stores. Some are promotional copies that are sent to established weblog writers. (Membership has its privileges.) More important, most of them are actually read, which is what they're for to begin with.

The advent of electronic books in the past two years -- e-books, we call them -- began with something from Amazon called "Kindle." That led to other forms of "e-readers." Paul gave me a "Nook" for Christmas. That's the one from Barnes and Noble. About two months ago, Sal and I got upgrades to our phones, namely the Droid2 smartphone, made by Motorola for Verizon. Among the thousands of applications available -- apps, another buzzword for ya! -- is an e-reader device for Nook, as well as for Kindle. Now I can read books anywhere. I will never be bored again.

The most likely candidates for e-books are the time-dated ones, usually about short-lived political or social issues, especially political. (Will I really want Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars around the house in two years? Or any accounts of the last Presidential election? It's not as if the latter would have been written by Theodore White. Just sayin' ...) The least likely candidates for e-books are described at some length by a piece in Slate magazine. Click here: “As little as a year or two ago, it was possible to be skeptical about the future of electronic publishing, but it's becoming increasingly clear that Kindles, iPads, and the like will soon be the dominant medium ...”
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