I don’t think the iPod comparisons really work.

Music is an intangible thing (apart from packaging). Music is sound. The iPod didn’t *really* change the way listeners interacted with music; we’d been listening to songs through headphones for years. Now we can just carry more of it with us (even if it does sound worse because of the lower quality of digital files.)

But I don’t want to read books on a screen. I want to read books on paper. I want to underline things. i want (need!) to make notes in the margins. I need to dog-ear pages.

And more than that, I need to SHARE my books. If I shell out $400 for a Kindle reader (which, it must be said, is ugly as homemade sin), I can’t share my books - not even with another Kindle owner. I can’t print them out. I can’t transfer the digital book to another device. I’ve got a bunch of DRM-locked digital books that may or may not still be useful in 5 years when Amazon decides to release something else or abandon it all together.

But more than all that, it seems like the most useful environment for an eReader is traveling, especially plane travel. And what’s the crucial thing I can’t do in that 20-30 minutes just prior to and just after the plane in is the sky? The time when reading a good book would be just right?

I can’t USE ELECTRONIC DEVICES.

But all the luck in the world to Amazon. It might work.

I’m pretty excited about this gadget, too. The thing that made the iPod so monumental is the way that it preserved the “album” aspect of music rather than just treating songs like “files”. If Amazon’s Kindle can help the avid reader hold onto some of that “sitting by the fire with a good book” feeling, then they may be onto something. I’d love to hold one and goof around with it a bit. The price should come down as more competitors release similar products. I’ll probably opt to get a digital book-reader (DBR?) when they’re in their 2nd or 3rd generations after the kinks are worked out a bit more.