A couple of days ago, I bought a book for friend who was in the hospital. It was a spontaneous purchase and I thought he'd enjoy it. Something picked up at the last minute with him and his situation in mind. So today, this entry is about "what the Kindle" cannot be...and here it is: the Kindle cannot be a small gift that one buys at the spur of the moment and one brings to a dinner party, a get together, or simply one of those "come empty handed" occasions....

Let's admit this: Books are wonderful for their content and as a representation of a life lived, but, they are also decorative objects. For those of us who can't afford expensive art work, books lined up on a shelf are the next best thing. Unless they are a collection of "For Dummies", they easily project sophistication and erudition. Well: The Kindle Cannot Do That!

Today, I am thinking about a positive "can't do": it cannot give you back pain or scoliosis. 

A list of links, a block of paragraphs, and an undesigned page, are like a dish without seasoning. Or to fall back on the ultimate cliches: Size matters. A picture is worth a thousand words. Layout is King.

The more I'm using the Kindle the more I realize how amazing it is. But, I also discover its shortcomings. Not the ones related to the fact that I can't watch videos on it, or that it doesn't offer many foreign language books, but other little shortcomings. So, once in a while, I will bring "this defect" to Scribbles - my way of poking fun at this revolutionary tool.

#1 All the books on your Kindle will have the same cover. -- positive spin: it is the content that matters. 

vs.

For all of us who said they would never read a newspaper online, we know that only as Emerson once stated: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

So let's all agree on one thing, electronic reading is here to stay, grow and obviously, take over good old fashion paper books. Nobody's saying "books" as we know them will completely disappear but they will be competing with new distribution pipelines -- same as movies are competing with DVDs, DVD with "TV On Demand" or Blockbuster with Netflix and Netflix with Watch Now Netflix. 

The real question is: what will happen to bookstores as we know them? If you can -- and will -- download books on your tablet, at any time, when will you or, rather, will you ever step into a Barnes and Noble, a Borders or your indie bookstore?

 I, have not gone to Blockbuster for years, and I no longer browse the aisle of any DVD reseller. Why? cause it's all here -- on my computer -- my desktop, my laptop or any wifi access I get when I travel.