Surprises of The Amazon Kindle

On mother's day we got a Kindle for my wife and she hasn't been able to live without it since.  Thank you Amazon.  In many more ways than one, it is a wonderful device, so good that it makes me debate whether every family member should have one.  But for now we are sharing it.  I am reading the kids "The Treasure Island" every night, and for myself, I am reading the Russian Classic "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoyevsky.  I chose that book because, it was well recommended by a few friends, and one in particular who called it the best book he's ever read. So much for that.

Here is how this story about new technologies for old habits gets funny.

Unlike a book, The Kindle is a tablet so you don't really know how far you are into a book, unless it tells you.  With a physical book, you can, with one look kinda know where you are.  The Kindle solves that problem by putting a progress bar in the bottom that tells you what percentage you are into the book.

So when I started "The Brothers Karamazov", it started by showing me that I was 1% into the book.  But after 3 weeks of reading, I noticed that I was still at 1%.  I slowly got nervous.  I was hoping that every time I pressed "next page" I'd finally get to 2%, but no, I seemed to be stuck at 1%.

Then I started thinking: "How long is this book for God's sake?".  At this rate, it will take me 3 years to finish it.  I knew these Russian's wrote long books, but holy cow.

Then finally I asked my wife, about this bizarre phenomenon, and she took one quick glance at the Kinde and threw it back at me saying something like: "look at the title of the book you ordered, you..."

I did and there was the answer. I had not downloaded The Brothers Karamazov, but instead:

"The Complete Works Of Fyodor Dostoyevsky"

D'oh!  No wonder I'll be stuck at 1% for a lot longer.

So here is the lesson for Kindle and new technologies for old habits.  With an Electronic tablet, you may not know exactly what book you are reading!!  On a physical book, you get that confirmed every second you look at the book.  With a download, mistakes can happen.  Something as basic as knowing what you are reading is a potential failure point with a digital tablet.  Who would have thunk it?

Comments

[ayse]

and what's your lovely wife reading?

[Emre Sokullu]

Yeah I just got one for myself and I love it too. But doesn't Kindle display a percentage progress bar for books at the bottom of the screen? or maybe I've been lucky with my choices so far.

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