Kindle 2's audio capabilities

[readingthedark]

Since I'm seeing opposing points of view from people I respect, I figure I'll just rant a little in both directions. I meant to do a rant on how novelists with a book coming out should view bookstores, but that one has ballooned into an article. I swear I could go on about a stale cookie for seventy pages

Comments

[simi]

I've been watching the first season of Buffy (and one of my fellow Browncoats summed up Buffy quite well as a necessary creative step for Whedon to get to Firefly - but I digress) and there's a speech from Giles concering the worth of actual books over digital info. Basically he summed it up as computers being sterile and without character and books as having substance and being smelly and thus triggering a whole human experience over simply gobbling up bits of information

[readingthedark]

As I think I mentioned, I bought Buffy because I had the money and figured it would be good to understand how a TV show seemed to spawn a change in publishing. Along the way, I fell head over heels for her and the show. I had posters of the original movie on my wall when we were kids

[simi]

My justifications for piracy tend along the line of unknowns who I am introduced to via pirated music. If I like something, chances are I'll search out more of it and purchase it by legitimate means. And with smaller record companies (like Ani DiFranco's back in the day) piracy was the only way to effectively spread the music and create the demand that allowed for more to be available legitimately

[readingthedark]

My feeling with used books is a bit different. The author, if no one cheated, is paid for the first sale, at which point I think people should be able to do whatever they want with the physical object that they have purchased. Further, I'd hate to think that I was morally obligated to throw books into the trash when I finished them. (You'll see that some of the books I'm sending you are ARCs and strips. With those, I feel like it's wrong to sell them -- but I don't want to toss them if I can help it.)

There are artists where I buy multiple copies. I could pretend that they are "investments" because I certainly sell books on occasion, but I confess that it is more honest to admit that I am obsessed enough with books that multiple copies are a security blanket to protect me from reality.