I love books.  I read many of them.  But I’ve often dealt with the thought of how many trees are used to make books that we often only read once and then shelve or give away.  Books are big business.  If you walk into any Barnes & Noble, you’ll get the idea.  There are constantly new books flooding the stores. Magazines, let’s not talk about magazine, and news papers.  Book stores are no longer dark, textured family businesses that smell comforting and make you want to linger reading half the book you’re about to buy on the spot.  Book stores are corporate.  Isles now have end-caps much like a Target or Wal-Mart.  Sale items, themes.  Pretty much any gimmick you can think of to sell books.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge supporter of reading, but I think that if you sacrifice character and quality for mass sales, things go bad.

But it didn’t take long for someone to pay attention.  Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon is a brilliant man indeed. He created what is being called the iPod of books, the Kindle.  I recently got an Amazon Kindle and let me tell you, it was love at first chapter.  This thing is incredible… and if it catches on the way the iPod did, it will really change our footprint on trees.  The Kindle is a digital book reader that uses a new technology called digital paper.  I know most of you are saying, “I have a hard time reading from a screen Ali, I just really like the look and feel of paper.”  But you haven’t read on digital paper yet.  This is amazing technology.  It is basically like a fancy etch-e-sketch (remember those? I hope so, or I just dated myself!)  Digital paper refreshes the screen only when you change the image, so it doesn’t use LCD technology, which makes it incredibly readable... it looks JUST LIKE paper.... and it has INCREDIBLE battery life!  My Kindle lasts two or three weeks before I need to charge it.  It comes with a USB connector, so you can charge it from your computer without having to carry an adaptor.  It’s the size of a paperback book, but thinner.  It is very, very easy to navigate pages.

But the best part is yet to come.  It would suck if you had to download the books on your computer and then upload or sync them to this thing, right? I agree.  That’s why Jeff is such a genius.  This thing has a built in Cellular Modem, that you do not pay for, and wirelessly (anywhere in the country, as long as there is cell reception) you can download any book you want from Amazon.com.  Yes, it has a browser with a keyboard and you can browse for books on the screen, and download them right there in less than 60 seconds! Most of the books are half the cost of paper, and a Kindle can store and carry up to 200 of them.  And if you want more space there is a memory card slot.  You can annotate, mark pages, highlight and refer to sections and even look up definitions on the spot!  You can subscribe to magazines, and newspapers.  You can even have RSS feeds.

I recommend you watch the interview with Jeff Bezos and Charlie Rose.  Here is the link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m3BJUPG4M53FH6:m34OU8YUSZK9X3

Also, you can get more information and buy a Kindle here:

And if we bump into each other, you can check out my Kindle!