I have seen this “Kindle” thing floating around on Amazon for quite a while now. Essentially, Kindle is Amazon’s improvement to e-books – a hand-held wireless device that allows you to purchase and download electronic books and novels. It sports an iPod-esque white color scheme, can hold up to 125,000 digitally formated books, and is being sold for $359. Pretty nifty. The Amazon folks are saying it will be big, but I’m just not sure.

Sure it has some obvious pros… You could save a lot of trees by purchasing electronic novels. A book will never be “out-of-stock” or have a waiting period since a digital medium can’t sell out. You can download books on the fly and wont have to schedule a trek to the library or bookstore into your busy day. And its definitely a huge improvement over e-books. At least now this hand-held device can travel with you (at a super light weight of roughly 10 ounces) and your e-books won’t have to live on a bulky laptop.

Regardless, I think there is something amazingly powerful about holding a book in your hands and actually turning the pages… being able to bookmark your place within a novel and see just how many pages you’ve read… having the option to lend a book to a friend, or sell it back to a used book store. None of these things are really possible with Kindle.

Above all, the intimacy of reading a paper book is one of the few things that removes us from the ever-present glare of an electronic screen (be it a computer, phone, iPod, or TV). I stare at my computer all day at work, and when I get on the T to head home, I pull out a book and read. There is something great about getting lost in the pages of a book, and I’m just not sure if that can be replaced by another screen. We rely so heavily on electronics in our day to day lives, its sometimes nice to unplug, and reading certainly does that for me.

Who knows… Maybe Kindle will catch on and become ridiculously popular. Maybe people will be all about the lack of pages and digital formatting. I’m just not ready for that yet and won’t be rushing out to purchase one anytime soon.

Here’s a handy article if you want to read more.