Technology and it's effects.

Today I was looking at Amazon, and twitter, and Publishers Weekly and there is a lot of chatter out there about the Kindle. This world we live in moves so fast and you either jump on and hold on or just let it pass at it's own pace. I'm trying to transition and jump and hold but part of me just says screw it. So much is gained by technology yet how much is lost in the fray?

I can't help but think what wide spread usage of the Kindle will do to the book industry and reading in general. I'm a self proclaimed Bibliophile and my wife will attest that every week I'm bringing to books home. Some I won't ever read but they seem like something that would interest me. Some I'll read parts of and get bored with them, others I'll simply tear through as if they are a present under the tree on Christmas Eve. But every single book I have, will have and will never have are just friends that I will meet along my life cycle.

It puzzles me, the thought of curling up on the couch, in bed, or in a chair and reading a book on a flat screen hand held computer. It's so impersonal and uninviting. It seems to me that the imagination would suffer and the enjoyment would turn more towards torture than pleasure. Where are the pages that brown and yellow with age? Where is the scent of paper and ink and binding glue that creates that magical concoction of a book? Walking into a book store would equate to walking into a averagely white hospital waiting room with nothing but the smell of Ammonia to tide you over.

What happens to book stores in general? Will there be a need for bookshelves any longer or will it all be online downloadable content that further removes humanity away from the act of being human? Not only book stores but what happens to writers when there is no more scanning the isles for that next great read. The excitement of searching through a mountain of books for your next thrill ride or emotional release will be extinct. I fear that unless your a known entity within the writing world you will be lost in the wake of the technological marvels that will propagate and proliferate humanity.

Think about it. When you go to a book store you might already know what book you're looking for...especially if you fall into the Oprah book club cult (another rant for another raving)...but along the way you meet and greet new friends on the shelf or best seller tables. Hell, you might even adopt one and take it home with you even though you planned on buying just the one book. But when you go to Amazon or some other online book source you go straight for the kill and buy that one book and you might...MIGHT...checkout the 'other people that bought this book are interested in these as well' link that will lead you to a book you might come back for if you remember. But other people that bought said book won't really look at other books either so your source for the new up and comer is limited to the coding within the website.

Now to the 'meat and potatoes' of this raving! If you go to Amazon, or any of the thousands of sites that will surely poke their surly heads up in the future, to download a Kindle book, which I believe you'll probably be able to just down load from a list on Kindle, you don't even look. For all the aggression the populace has shown for rights and freedoms this seems to me like others have decided how to take the freedom and God given right of free will out of the mix. I assume they believe that everyone is far less complex then themselves and that the more simple and streamlined the process the easier we as humans will enjoy the process. I'm not a primate, I have free will and an intellect that allows me to gain excitement through knowledge and the hunt for a good if not great book. I digress! So you download a 'book' from Kindle and you will NEVER take the time to see what's new out there. You will follow blindly over the cliff like other lemmings that took the leap into the known. I believe that this will ruin the writing world and the market in it's entirety.

I guess nothing is free and with new technologies we give up 'small' things that others deem are no longer important. I love technology and I don't know where I'd be without it but there are certain things I don't want. I see the Graphic Novel soon to be movie Surrogates becoming real life. Why get your hands dirty and struggle with the challenge when you can sit back and let technology do the work? I won't own a Kindle and if I ever get published I hope to never put a book on Kindle. That being said if it comes down to my principles or my family and I surviving I'll sell out in a heart beat. So what I'm saying is let's stop this computer 'book' thing before it gets started. I don't want to be put in that situation and I don't want to lose the escape a book store and a great book brings to my life.

If you haven't noticed readers are seen as standoffish and aloof at times. We're not, we are just addicted to reading and the knowledge and escapism that pour forth as we devour books. Also, this is something that I'm passionate about but something I'm torn about as well. I hope to one day be nothing more than a writer, take that whichever way you will, and I want to be able to support my wife, kids if we have any, and all family by writing. I'd love to be the next JK Rowling or Vince Flynn or Robert Ludlum or Lee Childs and write for a living, but if the market switches to computer 'books' then it leaves me little choice...hop on or get run over...and I just hope it doesn't come to that. I just hope I can write good paper bound books that release the scent of the Gods every time you flip open the cover or turn the pages.