E-readers... perspectives from a Kindle owner

I got a Kindle four months ago, and I LOVE it. I am reading more now, spending more now (even though the books are much cheaper! Amazon must love that), and I feel very happy with my Kindle. However, I'm reading a lot of material lately about how the Kindle will never replace the book with all its wonderfully nostalgic feel and blah blah blah. As far as I can tell, most of this criticism comes from people who have not spent significant time reading on the Kindle or another similar device (and by significant, I mean probably at least two full-length novels). Many people are very nice if still slightly skeptical, though others are downright dismissive (she'll go nameless, but her initials are GC ;-)

Some people even go so far as to say that "the traditional printed book will be the best home for works that need to be lingered over, meditated, considered with care," referring to literary fiction. I don't mean to sound snarky, but the author's reason - that e-readers promote linearity of attention, which is best suited for narrative-dominated books - does not seem particularly sound to me. I was going to comment on his blog but as my comment got longer I thought I would turn it into my own post.

As a Kindle owner and one who enjoys literary fiction (I just finished Solzhenitsyn's "The Cancer Ward" on my Kindle and am getting ready to start "The Brothers Karamazov" - I think those probably qualify), I'd like to argue against the idea that the Kindle will not / cannot be more than an ancillary device for enjoying these types of work.

My argument breaks the reading experience down into three factors:

1. Content - are all the words, pictures and other literary and visual elements there? do they look like they are intended to look on the printed page and are they experienced visually, conceptually, and cognitively as they are intended to be?
2. Interface - when reading, how does the reader navigate the information and interact with the material? how does the reader turn pages, save his place in the book, look at a footnote or cross-reference, quickly go back to an earlier section of the book, make notes, etc (side note: these are all things that I think could be improve on future versions of the Kindle)
   
3. Form factor - what is the physical object that the reader holds actually like, and what physical sensations are experienced during reading, opening, closing, carrying the reader, etc?
   

If all of these things on an e-reader were identical to the experience of reading a traditional book, then it would be silly to say that one cannot experience any work of literature in as full or contemplative a way as when reading a traditional book. My thesis is that e-readers can be as good or better in both content and interface, and that the form factor differences are not central to the contemplative experience if the other two hurdles are overcome.

Although I think the current generation of e-readers actually gets a pretty low grade on both content and interface, these are both solvable issues that will improve with technology. This will happen quickly and before long the e-reading experience will be as good as or better than the traditional reading experience on both these fronts.

Form factor is another issue (which is potentially solvable, though much more difficult), which I will cover later.

On the content and interface fronts, I agree that today's e-readers and their capabilities do not match those of a printed book. The Kindle doesn't do so well with illustrations or with non-standard textual layouts. When reading works which use lots of illustration or rely on unusual fonts / typographical settings / etc to convey meaning, readers will by definition miss something, because the content is actually different. But, to the degree that e-readers can faithfully represent the content of a work, at least some readers can and will experience the work and its meaning fully, in all its contemplative glory. Future versions of the Kindle and other e-readers will almost certainly get to this level of faithfully representing content, it's just a matter of time and technology development. It's simply a matter of better "e-ink" or similar technologies, and more computing power packed into the device to power the visuals.

Furthermore, I think interface or "reading experience" features will quickly improve. I can imagine an iPhone-like interface where a user swipes a finger across the screen to turn the page, and where an animation shows the text bending and moving so that it looks as if the page itself is being "flipped." The form of the reader will be the same but I think the experience may continue to evolve towards being "book-like." Again, this is a technology issue and will be solved, not a fundamental form issue. The fact that all of these features are already basically in use on computers already is itself proof that we'll get there if we want to, and there is probably a host of even better ideas waiting to be thought up by someone more creative than me. Many of them are not possible with traditional books, so the interface will eventually be even better (for example, how about a voice-activated search function that allows one to quickly find an earlier narrative section... maybe you prefer flipping through pages for five minutes mumbling "now where was that..." and maybe that's part of the contemplation, but you could still do it that way manually if you wanted to...)

And, I can even imagine an e-reader where notes can be written in the margins, pages marked up in my own handwriting, etc. Again, a technology issue, solvable.

Finally, there is the form factor or "look and feel" issue. I am holding in my hands a plastic box, whose weight doesn't shift in my hands as I make progress to give me clues about how much is left to read. There is no slightly gritty feel on the pages when I rub with my finger, there's no resistance from the binding when the book is new, etc. I think that even both of those could potentially be solved, although it's a more challenging problem than content or interface (too much writing already, I won't go into the ideas... I'll just file a patent... ;-)

I know that for many folks, they love the look and feel of a book, but I do think that if you still have the armchair, the coffee, the lighting, and whatever else suits your fancy, the right content and interface can allow you to fully experience the meaning of the work. You may not ever confuse the experience for that of reading a traditional book, but I don't think you have to do that to have a great reading experience. I think fixing the first two issues is enough, and that will happen sooner than we think.

[hastily added: I just realized that the experience of swapping and lending books among friends is not at all addressed here. I'll just say that there's no reason why that can't also be replicated in e-readers, except the fact that publishers are going to try to strictly enforce DRM. Of course, just like in music and in movies, somebody will find a way to crack it, and we'll all be fine if we want to share our books. =)]