Kindling

The Kindle certainly does a superb job of resembling the printed page, but I find I miss the tactile delight of a bound book in my hands, as opposed to a machine.

I agree with you, book/daddy: few will be reading novels in a digital reader anytime soon. That said, I'm working on some web-based software in my spare time that can turn the iPhone/iPod Touch into a reader platform. Not e-books, because I don't think applying the paradigm of printed books to the internet is the best way to get online.

Like your first commenter said, the ability to link your work together using the familiar hypertext paradigm is the real benefit. You can put two pieces of content "next to" each other using hyperlinks in a way you can't with a printed book. You can offer readers a new interactive experience and new works written for the new paradigm will reflect this flexibility. Not every work will benefit from this, of course. I can't imagine reading the chapters of a novel out of the sequence the author intends, but what if the novel was like Max Brooks' World War Z? Newer post-modern works might very benefit from having a new interaction paradigm with the reader.

As an editor and writer who saw his first published story set in hot metal, I marvel at Amazon's new Kindle reader and its role in the future of the "printed" word.

No traditional book can offer the interactive platform I've created for the Kindle edition of my historical novel Brazil or open the door to actively sharing the magic that goes into the making of a monumental work.

Linked to the e-text is a unique online guide with more than 200 images and illustrations, providing an indispensable companion on a fictional journey through five hundred years of Brazilian history. The guide is also linked to my research notes and journal archived on my website - The Making of a Novel

Not every book lends itself to such in-depth treatment, but for a historical novel like Brazil – a subject of which few North American readers background knowledge – Kindle is revolutionary.

It offers a window on the past, and gives the reader a unique look into the mind of a writer and the haunting and unforgettable images that inspired my words.

Were Gutenberg here to see the Kindle, he would have one word: "Bravo!"

You can preview the guide The Kindle Illustrated Guide at my website.

No, they don't count. I should have made that clear. Because you're listening, not reading. Which is the whole point of the new electronic books.

I think listening to Dan Brown's books appropriate because -- after listening to a number of books on tape when I had a halfway decent commute time -- I found that very little memory of the book remained. I listened to all of "Little Dorrit" and "Mill on the Floss," but I can barely tell you what happened in either. I think it's related to the training of your visual memory in reading.

Do "books on tape" count as an electronic book device? I've read/listened to most of Dan Brown's works along with other works of fiction in the car on the way to places 3+ hours from home. With more of them on CDs, it's a snap to copy one to an iPod and play it when one's eyes are otherwise occupied.