better than books

Here's a shocking revealation - "I'm a reader, I actually read books" I know, I know, how passe, how quaint. Does he use duck quills too?

But I am also an 'early adopter'. As a consultant my usual response is 'I'll try it and let you know'.

These two inclinations mixed to lead me to 'e-books'.

We recently moved and when faced with moving the zillions of paper based books I have collected over the years, I simply said "NO". That's it, I'm not going to store them, I'm not going to dust them, I'm not going to manage them.

Goodwill didn't mind getting a truck load of books. It's a win-win situation.

Did I stop reading?

When we digitized all the music we owned on CD to MP3 - did I stop listening? The fact is I listen now more than ever with thousands of songs I bought over the years at my finger tips.

But books move from paper to digital form in a very awkward, costly way, scanning.

So forget that. I simply decided that 'going forward' (going forward thru time as opposed to moving backwards thru time which babble speak executives seem to always want to make clear) I would buy new books only in digital form. I also decided that if I wanted access to a book I owned (or used to own) in paper I would simply buy it again in digital form.

My primary personal notebook is a Mac Book Air. But I also have several Windows systems and I use a iPhone.

On each of these devices I have 'e-reader' software that lets me access the material.

I like 'Stanza' for all three platforms but I also use (when damned by foolish digital rights management restrictions) 'eReader'.

I can't use a Kindle from Amazon here in Canada (copy-write law chaos reins) and if given the option I don't believe I would anyway. I dislike carrying around many devices. If I want to read while out and about I'm happy to use my multi-purpose iPhone rather than schlep around another device 'just in case'.

Come bed time I read from my Mac Air. Its easy and very comfortable. Bookmarks, instant access to a great dictionary if (when) I encounter a word I don't know) and the internet - who could want for more?

There are online book stores, more every day, set up to sell these digital books. The two I like best are ManyBooks.net and Fictionwise.com. They have a wide and deep selection, best sellers and beyond. I'll let their advertising wonks advertise for them.

In Canada Indigo/Chapters ShortCovers.com which we hope will take off but it's sort of pre-flight as I write this.

Don't forget Amazon, it sells PDF and other e-versions of books along with their proprietary Kindle content. At the moment there remain some books that are not in digital form, like Warren Buffet's Snowball (not anymore - it's there now), or William D. Cohan's "House of Cards - A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street", (wrong - its there now too). There WERE two paper books I did buy because as business books 'I thought' they wouldn't be available online. Wrong.

If you are a reader, I encourage you to consider the 'e-book' path. It's 'better than books'.