Tolkien on the Kindle

[Inziladun]

You can always look to me for Luddite tendencies, but I don't think I'll be getting an Kindle, or any sort of e-reader.
For one thing, I don't travel much, and when I do, it's only for a few days at most. It isn't difficult to stick my "destructible" Tolkien paperbacks in my luggage, and they don't take up much room. The expensive hardbacks stay on the bookshelf nearly all the time.
It looks to me as if the e-reader thing is the wave of the future, however. I've successfully resisted Facebook, Twitter, ipads, and smartphones, though, so I'm confident I'll withstand this also.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Kindles, as a whole seem to be wondrous devices, and I think that I would take great use out of one. Personally, I do love my books. And if a few trees die for my reading pleasure, too bad, they will plant more. Don't take me wrong, I love trees, but books are an important cornerstone to society. Physical books require trees to die. . . . Anyway, back to my point, I think that a Kindle would be very handy for travel. I can take as many as ten books on a trip. In fact, when Lauri and I went to Britain this spring I packed probably seven books (and lugged them on and off trains and walked through cities with them). Though this may have built my arm strength, I hardly think it was good for my back. If I had a Kindle I would have a lot less luggage when I travel and I would be able to take so many more books with me. When I was travelling in October the man sitting next to me on one of my flights showed me his Kindle and he had so many books on it. It was fascinating.

I think that Kindles and other e-books are a great idea, and though I do not believe that physical books should be replaced by digital copies, I do think that digital libraries are both practical and useful for frequent travellers.