My Kindle and Me Revisited

I have been intending to write this post reflecting on my initial Kindle owning comments last August for some time now, as I felt that three weeks' ownership may have been too short a time in which to form solid conclusions about it.

I was initially annoyed that I had not found a book which I enjoyed reading on the device. At first this was down to my poor choices and succumbing to marketing blurb, but discovering that a reader has a week in which to apply for a full refund of their purchase, and finding a book I wanted to read helped matters as far as I was concerned.

At the time I objected to the default font. This is still true, but in the absence of anything more beautiful I have grudgingly come to accept it, and I just hope that future Kindles will have come equipped with an aesthetically pleasing alternative. I also did not like the fact that the reader's progress is measured by a percentage rather than the feel of a stack of pages betwixt left or right hand. I still do not like this, but knowing that most YA novels I read are around 400 pages, I have come to equate 5% remaining to some twenty pages.

As is usual in the twenty-first century, I have therefore adapted my habits to sate technology's restrictions, but it is what technology is able to offer over the codex book that now makes me look for the 'Kindle Edition' links on Amazon.

Not only do I own a Kindle, but I also own an Android tablet and smartphone. Both of these devices have the Kindle app installed. While I do not use it frequently, being able to pick up the book I am reading at home  (after a quick sync) while I am stuck waiting for something is impressive. I know some people carry their Kindle with them at all times, but I am not one of them. I do, however, always have my phone. The usefulness of this app seems massively underrated in the people to whom I have spoken, and it is one of the things that puts technology ahead of its paper counterpart.

Technology also sets itself apart from paper when it comes to reading for academic purposes. Many of my printed books have PostIt notes sticking out of them at all angles to mark passages which I either have, or need to, transcribe to the computer for possible use in my writing. With a Kindle (or the Android apps) it is possible simply to select the text to mark it, and then log into my Amazon account on a computer to access it when it is needed. It is also possible to add annotations, but as I rarely do this in printed books, I have not found the need for its electronic equivalent.

Although seemingly small, these two features afforded the Kindle reader by nature of its medium make it a very different tool for the 'professional' reader as technology is providing something that print cannot.

Six months ago I wrote that I was struggling to build a relationship with my Kindle. I will accept that I have now built a professional relationship with it, and if it was the case that Kindle books were always cheaper than their paper alternative, or that people could buy Kindle books as gifts, the relationship would probably be stronger. But we all know that relationships need to be worked at, and I guess that one challenging a reluctance to pay £4.99 for a text when a 'Like New' copy is available for a penny still needs a little more time.

As a brief postscript, I believe there are some features available to US Kindle users - such as sharing with other users and 'borrowing' texts - which still have to cross the Atlantic and these are likely to make a also likely to make a positive difference when (or if) they arrive on British shores.

My Kindle and Me

As of today, I have owned a Kindle for three weeks. In this time I feel rather saddened that my reaction has not been the one of complete and utter delight that so many friends and colleagues have experienced since buying their device.

I am now about half way through my third purchased book and this is the furthest I have got with the downloaded books so far.

The first book was a rash purchase: the publisher’s newly released blurb made it out to be a very different book to the one I started reading. Having made it a couple of chapters in, I was delighted to discover that it is possible to return Kindle books and get a full refund within seven days of the original purchase.

The second book was one that I had ordered a few months ago in a paper copy. I changed the order when I bought the Kindle and it duly arrived by magic during the night when the book was published. I managed a little more of this one, but was struggling to commit to the plot and when confronted with an unpleasantly visceral description of violence I was convinced to take advantage of the full refund again.

Knowing that I rarely give up when reading a book made me wonder about the Kindle as a medium: as I consume a lot of information through screens of different sorts, I began to wonder whether consuming a book in this way means that I see it as a more superficial and transitory method of delivery, or is the guarantee of a full refund – something not available for physical books without having to pay shipping costs – something that I would have used previously had it been possible?

The third book that appeared over night, when it was published, is the second book in a series I started reading last year. Maybe because I had some idea what to expect from the novel I am now reading this and looking forward to picking up the Kindle and continuing reading. However, I still do not enjoy the Kindle reading experience.

There are two things which I feel make me dislike it: firstly, the serif font is terrible (the sans-serif alternative is worse) and it is not pleasing or easy to read. I find this frustrating when the quality of some graphics available show that more artistic fonts could easily be offered as options. Secondly – and I know this sounds strange – I cannot stand the lack of page numbers as I do not feel physically anchored in the text (I know there a location reference, but its big jumps lack any sense of continuity). The lack of my physical position in the text also means that it is not easy to flick forward a couple of pages to know that I only have another two pages to read before stopping reading (as by the time the end of the chapter has been found there is no quick way to go back to the original place).

I know people bemoan the demise of the codex book and use that as a reason not to buy a Kindle. I forced myself to overcome that objection, but am really struggling to build any (for want of a better word) relationship with mine. I will continue to use it in the hope that the technology will become more familiar in due course, but in the meantime I think I will have to pick books for it carefully.

Technology's Effects: 13 Years On

In 1999, on the eve of the new millennium and a mere four or five years after the birth of the Internet as we recognise it today, Eliza T Dresang identified technology changing children’s literature in three main areas. Writing in Radical Change: Books for Youth in a Digital Age she describes these as

• Connectivity, or ‘the connections that readers make with hypertext-like links, both visual and mental, prompted by the changing forms and formats of handheld books’ (p12)
• Interactivity, as ‘the changing format of books enables a more active, involved reading […] encourag[ing] a wide range of different responses […as readers…] approach the text in various nonlinear or non-sequential ways that the author does not determine in advance’ (p12)
• Access, or ‘the breaking of long-standing barriers […which…] blocked off certain topics, certain kinds of characters, certain style of language’ (p13)

Looking back on predictions for the future from the safety of that future can be seen as a cruel pastime, but in a world which has – in some ways – been dramatically changed by technology over the past thirteen years, Dresang’s descriptions can be seen to be both prescient and slightly flawed.

The changing forms of handheld books can most readily be seen in Amazon’s Kindle (notably already a Hoover/vacuum-like synonym for ‘e-reader’) which first appeared in 2007. The Kindle does allow readers to interact with their reading matter in new ways and words can be glossed or ideas googled from the device. While I still do not own a Kindle, I know that having a smartphone has changed the way I read printed books as I am able to check references or explore related ideas without having to turn on the laptop.

Dresang’s connectivity category also includes books which use new graphic formats and where links between text and graphics are far closer than just, say, a caption or label. However, from the 2012 perspective, this seems to fall more into her second categorisation.

The rapid growth of tablet, or slate, computers since the introduction of the iPad in 2010 as an additional (rather than replacement) screen in people’s homes has already had a massive influence on the way in which texts can be accessed. Unlike the electronic-ink based Kindles, which fundamentally function as a directly replacement for the printed text, books – or more accurately apps – which are being produced for tablets are founded on the idea of interactivity. Last year, one of the 'Children's Literature at Cambridge' blog posts looked at the potential for picturebooks on iPads, and since then the number of such texts has continued to increase apace. However, while picturebooks are well suited for the transition to new media, YA texts are still, for the time being at least, adhering to the traditional linear narrative, even if they are now available on the Kindle.

Similarly, last year’s launch of Pottermore marked a new step in the production of interactive texts as it was web – rather than app – based. While the reception to Pottermore remains mixed, it wholly fulfils Dresang’s description, and as the rest of the series is made available to online readers, it will be interesting to see how a new generation of even more technologically-savvy Harry Potter fans respond to it as both a narrative and web-based experience. As a little aside, it is worth noting that although these examples do take advantage of new media, paper-based 'interactive' texts were available in the 1970s in the form of the 'Choose your own adventure' series.

While Dresang’s first two categories have stood the test of time well, her third is more problematic. In terms of ‘taboo’ subjects and characters previously without voices, these are things which children’s literature has never shied away from and, although not necessarily commonplace, examples going back to the nineteenth century can be found. While the ready online availability of information on any topic imaginable (and probably some unimaginable) in the twenty-first century may have made some ideas more accessible to readers, addressing taboo topics is not a result of the digital revolution.

In terms of individuals’ access to texts and the sharing of information, new technology has arguably made it more difficult for some people as ownership of a Kindle or tablet and Internet access is a pre-requisite. Indeed, despite having a penchant for gadgetry, trying to use the app to make the cover of Lissa Price’s Starters ‘come alive’ by downloading and installing it failed for me, as my two year old smartphone was simply not powerful enough to cope with it. I will nevertheless try it again when I have upgraded my handset. At a financial cost, of course.

Even though the Kindle will celebrate its fifth birthday in a few months’ time, and the third generation iPad was launched earlier this year, this is still a fascinatingly new area to watch for developments as Dresang’s first two categories continue to shape (or be shaped) by changes in technology. Whether aspects of her third will begin to be realised might also give a commentator in 2025 pause for thought.

Originally written for the Children's Literature at Cambridge blog and first posted there earlier today.