Joseph and Mary and the ass they rode in on, Apple is already putting out the iPad 2 and I still haven’t got the first one!
To be honest, I wonder if I do really need an iPad. Is it just to appear au courant? (Spoken with a John Cleese voice.) I mean, I’ve got my new Mac and it’s totally transportable and holds everything. It’s not like the iPad fits into your pocket, you still need a bag or something to transport it. And saddle me and put me in the Old Testament, but I want a device that is about the size of my Moleskine notebook. Something that will fit into my coat pocket. All the tablets, readers, are still too bulky. I want a paperback-like device.
And kick me in my Gutenberg parts, but I still love the smell of a book in the morning, afternoon, and evening. There’s nothing like a book in your face. I’m intrigued by ebooks. And I like the ease that something like an iPad can offer — to think that I can carry around my own library that’s virtually at my fingertips. Exciting. But I still want my home filled with books. I want to show them off, talk to them, fondle them. You can’t do that with a virtual book. It’s like a dead thing in virtual space. I like the live old book, the way it ages like me, gets roughed up, shows signs of the passing years.
This is what I need to get: a “flipback” book. The Kindle killer!
www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/20/could-this-kill-kindle
“Being a writer is what I am, rather than what I do.” Christopher Hitchens.
Allister Timms 