Tolkien on the Kindle

[davem]

This review of the Kindle ed. is not very positive:

This review is about the Kindle version of LoTR, and doesn't have much to say about the quality of the book - though the fact that this is probably the sixth edition I've bought probably tells you what I think about that.
The disappointment here is the huge number of misprints in this edition. It's especially galling when you read the forward about how much care was taken to produce a definitive text for the anniversary edition.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/RVDWA...wasThisHelpful

I suppose anyone who is interested could download the Kindle program to their PC http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.h...pf_rd_i=468294 & then try the sample chapters.

I've seen e versions of the texts (TH, LotR, Sil, CoH ) before (a friend of Kate's who's blind had access to (legal) scanning software & I had a chance to access them.) The e-texts are fine for searching the text, but I certainly wouldn't want to read the story in that format.

[LadyBrooke]

I got a Kindle for Christmas too. My thoughts:

Positives
1.) So far I only have one Tolkien books on my Kindle (LotR) because I'm still waiting for my parents to pay me back some money they borrowed. And here's the biggest reason why I'm glad I have LotR on my Kindle; I live in the middle of nowhere and ride the school bus. My driveway is a quarter mile long and because of the classes I'm taking this semester I have six novels to read this semester at least three of which have to carted around each day including LotR. Then I have my college econ book and my European history textbook. There is no way I could carry that much every day and still be able to fit three to a seat on the bus and not break my back.

2.) There are a lot of free books available. I'm a poor high school student and no matter how much I wish I could afford to buy every book I want, I can't. I love a lot of classics and they're free. Plus you can catch deals on new books when Amazon runs promotions.

3.)Surprisingly there is a map in LotR.

4.) Also surprisingly you can turn on text to speech in it. While I hate the voice and it does pronounce some of the words Tolkien made up wrong, it is nice to be able to do something else and hear it in the background. Plus its cheaper then buying the actual cds of it being read.

Negatives
1.) The prices. I hate paying the same price for the Kindle version of LotR that I do the printed.

2.) The books I really wish were on the Kindle (H.O.M.E) aren't. Out of all the books, these are the ones that I could see myself using the highlighting and search features the most in because I hate going through the entirety of say Wars of the Jewels to find one small sentence about a feature of Elven life. Plus the publishers could (and hopefully would) be able to sell these books for less then the $19 dollars some of them go for now.

[davem]

I'm very close to buying one - I love the idea of so many out of copyright books being available free of charge - even some which as far as I know are out of print & which I've wanted to read for a long while (like John Leland's Itinerary - free on the Open Library site http://openlibrary.org/ ). Plus, you can download the free Calibre http://calibre-ebook.com/ program, which will let you organise & most importantly convert any ebook file type (including pdf's) into the .mobi type that the Kindle reads.

Also, you can get this dead cool 'Tolkienesque' cover for it from Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...pf_rd_i=468294

However, a couple of negatives - first, according to the Kindle agreement on the Amazon site you don't actually 'own' the Kindle books you buy - you just purchase a licence to read them on the device. Which means they can be deleted whenever Amazon decide, that you can't sell them on or give them away (as you can with a real book), & finally reading the one star reviews it seems that some people are having major problems with the screen packing up, the thing re-starting or freezing & having to be replaced - one guy on his fourth replacement. Looking into it, the problem seems to be to do with the cheaper Amazon own brand case (the one without the built in light). Oh, & it seems that the Kindle software allows Amazon to read the whole contents of your Kindle every time you connect to the network - so watch what you put on there

There - all that with only one slight Tolkien reference to avoid being completely off topic!

I may take the leap soon - & I may put some Tolkien on there to try the experience, but I still can't help feel that out of all the books out there Tolkien's may be least 'right' for the format...

[LadyBrooke]

Originally Posted by davem

I may take the leap soon - & I may put some Tolkien on there to try the experience, but I still can't help feel that out of all the books out there Tolkien's may be least 'right' for the format...

I don't think the Kindle versions will ever be able to fully replace the paper versions of Tolkien's books - it comes nowhere near my Hobbit book for example with the illustrations. I mainly like it because it's light weight and I already have so many textbooks to carry and I don't have to worry about tripping because I can't see over the pile of books which was a problem last year.

I would suggest trying to see it and play around with it in person before buying it if you're not sure.

[Mister Underhill]

I've been meaning to follow up in this thread with some pics for comparison, but I've been lazy since I got back from my little jaunt out of town. If I can scare up the camera -- it's around here somewheres -- I'll put some up tomorrow, but since the thread is active, I'll post a few quick comments in the meantime.

I did pick up LotR. It's steep at $19 US, but on the other hand this edition seems much improved from the one referred to in some of the older customer reviews, like the one that davem linked. Regretfully I have spotted one typo, an iconic line too:

'I am Uglúk. command.' [sic]

Overall, though, the e-version seems pretty faithful. I'm in III.4: "Treebeard", so I've been through Elvish passages, verse and song, the inscription on the Ring, the drawing of the West-gate of Moria. Flipping to the indices, everything seems in order. As LadyBrooke has mentioned, there is indeed a map, and even the genealogies are five-by-five, so long as you don't mind squinting a bit at the tiny font. I'll post a more complete evaluation when I've gone all the way through, but so far it seems pretty ship-shape.

I must admit, I'm enjoying this gadget even more than I thought I would. Remember when you got your first mp3 player and realized you could carry around an entire music collection in one little gadget? Like that. The e-ink display is not far off from reading a printed page -- much easier on the eyes and just more book-like than a backlit computer screen. As an inveterate browser, I am loving the ability to hear about an interesting book and then be leafing through the first chapter or two literally within seconds.

The privacy concerns that davem notes seem to be, unfortunately, just a fact of modern life. Cameras peep at us from every corner of our environment, and computers quietly catalog our habits and proclivities and distribute them to the appropriate (or inappropriate, as the case may be) advertising lists. Realistically it doesn't seem likely that Amazon is going to recall my LotR anytime soon. Also realistically, if you are the type of person who is really worried about Amazon having control over what you've bought from them, it's easy enough to figure out how to "jailbreak" your files and make copies. Ahem! -- or so I've heard.

Calibre is a great program for managing your e-library and converting formats around -- even if you don't have an e-reader. I will note, however, that conversions -- especially, in my short experience, from PDF to Kindle-friendly MOBI -- can be clunky.

After researching, I bit the bullet and went with the Amazon cover. Unfortunately the device is not truly mobile unless you have some sort of cover to protect the screen. For me, the Amazon cover is perfect -- clean, simple, light. It holds the Kindle securely, yet it's easy to pop the gadget in or out. I've been using mine daily since Christmas and haven't seen any sign of the problems some people mention about rebooting and whatnot. I didn't go with the one with the built-in light, though. It's just a cover.

On the negative side, there is a temptation towards reading ADD. With all these books at your fingertips, a guy like me can hardly resist taking a sip of Seneca, a little jolt of Shakespeare, etc. I feel a bit like a kid in a candy shop and it's hard to stay focused on one thing.

Also, here's a weird thing, it's kind of odd sometimes that you don't have a sense of how long a book is in this electronic format. Kindle deals in "locations", which could translate to different numbers of "pages" depending on how large or small you set the font. I guess I'll get more of a feel for this over time, but right now it's strange. War and Peace feels much the same as Call of the Wild -- you read 'em both one screen of text at a time. It's disorienting not having that heft as part of the sensory experience of reading.

Okay, so that post turned out longer than I thought it would. I'll try to post some pics tomorrow for your edification.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

Realistically it doesn't seem likely that Amazon is going to recall my LotR anytime soon. Also realistically, if you are the type of person who is really worried about Amazon having control over what you've bought from them, it's easy enough to figure out how to "jailbreak" your files and make copies. Ahem! -- or so I've heard.

Well, you'd think....

howsumever...

On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com.

In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.Retailers of physical goods cannot, of course, force their way into a customer’s home to take back a purchase, no matter how bootlegged it turns out to be. Yet Amazon appears to maintain a unique tether to the digital content it sells for the Kindle.

“It illustrates how few rights you have when you buy an e-book from Amazon,” said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer for British Telecom and an expert on computer security and commerce. “As a Kindle owner, I’m frustrated. I can’t lend people books and I can’t sell books that I’ve already read, and now it turns out that I can’t even count on still having my books tomorrow.”

Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/te.../18amazon.html

Which wouldn't affect me too much, as I can't think that even with a Kindle I'd buy new books - most of my reading choices are out of copyright anyway.

Of course, there are so many bootleg e-copies of Tolkien's books out there that people could convert via Calibre to the .mobi format that even if Amazon (or Harper Collins) were to withdraw the 'official' copies altogether they'd hardly disappear from Kindles - if only one knew someone with such versions ... (ahem...)

[Morthoron]

You see, this is the whole reason why I don't deal with Kindle or the plethora of e-book variants on the market. If I download a song or album from Amazon, it is mine, and I can dispense with it as I wish (just as if I purchased a music CD). I do not care for the thought of some Big Brother (a perfect allusion to the Orwellian nature of this thread) ready to pounce on my reading material.

Currently, if anyone wanted to take one of my books from my home without permission, they'd have to get past the owner -- holding a Browning BPS 12 gauge pump shotgun.

[LadyBrooke]

I guess I'm just so used to the fact that in this electronic age anything can vanish that it doesn't bother me that much. After using the school computers and having entire essays vanish, I'm not going to worry about Amazon removing my copy of LotR. Plus there are the free samples so I can figure out if I want to read The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun without actually buying it. On the other hand, I don't see myself taking my books off the top of my desktop any time soon.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by LadyBrooke

2.) The books I really wish were on the Kindle (H.O.M.E) aren't. Out of all the books, these are the ones that I could see myself using the highlighting and search features the most in because I hate going through the entirety of say Wars of the Jewels to find one small sentence about a feature of Elven life. Plus the publishers could (and hopefully would) be able to sell these books for less then the $19 dollars some of them go for now.

They will all be issued by the end of October - I ordered my kindle today and looked... might not get them all instantly as I have them all in paperback but I probably will in time.... ideally I think I will end up with a set of Tolkien hardbacks for home and Kindle versions for having on hand at all times!!! I do love and respect books but my some books are as essential as toothbrushes and used so constantly that they last about as long!!! My third paperback Lotr is beginning to disintegrate...

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

I do love and respect books but my some books are as essential as toothbrushes and used so constantly that they last about as long!!! My third paperback Lotr is beginning to disintegrate...

Oh come on. Dog-eared books are endearing. That's what Scotch tape is for.

My wife is absolutely enthralled with her Nook, but I still don't think an e-reader is for me.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Oh come on. Dog-eared books are endearing. That's what Scotch tape is for.

My wife is absolutely enthralled with her Nook, but I still don't think an e-reader is for me.

Hm well I don't have shelf space for the books I already own so I am hoping it will be a great boon.. let alone when I start travelling again...

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Oh come on. Dog-eared books are endearing. That's what Scotch tape is for.

A certain book of mine required so much tape that once fixed it became like 20% thicker than it was before it was torn. Maybe, in that case, a kindle will be easier...

[Galadriel]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Oh come on. Dog-eared books are endearing. That's what Scotch tape is for.

No. Scotch tape is evil. I've had some really bad experiences with it

[Mithalwen]

Well it arrived about an hour or so ago and I have read one essay and am now reading Roverandom (for the first time ...).. I do ever so slightly feel as if I have joined a cult though...

[Gwathagor]

I feel like civilization has probably had this conversation several times. Like when we switched over from the oral tradition to the scroll or the clay tablet, and later on to the leather codex. And think of the backlash there must have been against the printing press - mass-produced books for everybody? But books are supposed to be works of art!

There is no wrong or right textual medium. Each one is different and each one involves its own particular advantages and disadvantages. Books are a more geographical, tactile, kinesthetic experience. You learn in a different way than when you read an etext, because you can feel the book and each piece of information gets tied to a specific location. The etext is more abstract, but it's also more fluid. It allows for greater connectivity with other texts and information, via not only your particular device, but through the internet.

It will change the way we read and, even more, the way we think. But books won't ever completely die out because they have substance and texture and smell, which is something the internet will never be able to replicate. People need that physical connection to the world.