How Would You Explain a Kindle to Charles Dickens?

Rachel Walsh had a lot to explain. The young illustration undergraduate at the Cardiff School of Art & Design had been given a brief by her lecturer – the kind which lecturers love to give out but would probably dread to do themselves. It was to explain a piece of modern technology to someone who lived and died before 1900. Hard times, indeed.

She chose to describe the Kindle – and the person who she would explain it to was Charles Dickens. The metaphor that she used was that Kindle is a book with lots of little books inside. You can never go far wrong if you make a metaphor visual so Rachel got to work creating just that – a book with lots of little books within.

It wasn’t the easiest of tasks. In order to fulfill her lecturer’s great expectations she created forty tiny books to go inside a larger one. She found that this was not the easiest of tasks; the books were so tiny that if her hand jogged she would ruin one and have to start again from scratch. At times even a 0.04 nib pen was simply not small enough.

However, she overcame these obstacles and came up with something quite special. Dickens would have understood this concept at a glance. His interest would, I believe, have soon wavered – Dickens was so much more of a writer than a reader. Within seconds he would no doubt have been demanding a laptop and internet access. His new novels would be serialized at charlesjohnhuffamdickens.com and he would make a mint from selling the last couple of chapters to Amazon before so that his blog readers would have to pay to read them on their, you guessed it, kindles.

Many thanks to Rachel Walsh for giving us permission to reproduce these photographs here. Her life is a tale of two cities – she studies in Cardiff but hails from South West London. Yet she does have a blog which bridges them – and it includes more examples of her wonderful work as well as her musings. Click on any of the pictures or here to get there.

Kindle Launched in the UK

Image Credit Flickr User jblyberg

Eyebrows were raised by bibliophiles arriving on Amazon’s UK site yesterday.  Where had all the books gone?  Instead of the usual front page they were greeted with a possible vision of the future.  Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder had sent the readers of the UK a letter.  Not so much an ultimatum as an invitation. The Kindle had arrived in the UK. Or rather it will in late August.

Sales of digital books in the UK have been low since their inception.  Even last year the total sales of digital books accounted for less than one percent of the entire market, which is tiny if you compare it to the fact that in the UK out of five new books sold in the US, two will be hardbacks of the traditional variety.  The other three are all digital.

The Kindle has a few things going for it in the UK.  The most recent introduction to this marketplace was the iPad.  However, for most it proved to be too expensive, too big and way too heavy to be seriously considered as a reason to throw away a love affair with paper-based literature that goes back over a thousand years.  The Brits were not for turning.

However, the Kindle is cheaper.  Way cheaper.  Also it is lighter – it doesn’t even weigh as much as your average paperback.  Plus there are no distractions.  With the iPad there was the internet and those pesky applications to deal with – with Kindle it is just black text on a white background.  The simple aesthetics of the beast may well appeal to British readers.  With no distractions it will enable readers to do just – and simply – that.

Image Credit Flickr User Mike Licht

Is there anything else that Kindle has to attract the till now firmly traditional readers the the United Kingdom?  Anything to raise a smile upon the face of the ardent bibliophile? With access to a million titles free, gratis – for nothing, plus another four hundred thousand available to download (very easily) from the store the Kindle certainly offers the biggest bookshop in the world (probably). Plus its anti-glare screen makes it look like you are reading off a clean piece of card - its as close look to paper as you are likely to get on a screen.

There are downsides, of course, not least for the publishing houses which are being pressed for cheaper ‘product’ and are not in a situation to develop and introduce their own readers.  On the other hand, if it increases the demand for literature can it be that bad.  Of course, knowing the British they will have a (potentially luddite) trick up their collective sleeve.

Image Credit Flickr User Oskay

Additional Image Credits
Image Credt Flickr User GoxunuReviews - Girl Reading

Terms & Conditions - Cool Animated Film about Digital Rights Management

This is a very well put together animated short film about Digital Rights Management or DRM for short.  It was made by a group of students attending Vancouver Film School and outlines what publishers can do if they use DRM.

This is a term that is used when describing any technology that inhibits the use of digital content.  It involves direct modification of the file(s) and is used widely by such global brands as Sony, Microsoft, Apple and even Auntie (the BBC).

Amazon, for example was able to make two George Orwell books disappear from the files of Kindle users who had bought it from them. Without any irony whatsoever.

What does this mean for people who buy downloads?  You can’t share the book and you will most certainly not be able to keep the book forever.

It certainly does not seem like an enlightened move by publishers, particularly when it comes to reproducing and disseminating the work of long dead authors.

Take a look at the video and make up your own mind.

Tower Defence