Glad you found and enjoy the blog. Here is my 2 cents on your points:

1) For me, skipping pages is just a time-saver. There are so many books I want to read and so little time is this life. Non-fiction books often repeat the same thing over and over. Most of the time these authors have one great idea and their publisher tells them to make it long enough to be a book, so there’s a lot of filler…

2) The kindle rocks! I use it every day. I wrote a blog post about my main reasons for buying it here:
http://www.bryanthankins.com/index.php/2008/07/13/what-did-you-buy-for-your-birthday/
It is pretty sturdy unless your 2-year old gets a hold of a lot of water…

3) Agreed!

And don’t worry about your spelling, I won’t look down on you for it

this is an interesting post for a couple of reasons (and excuse my spelling, it is awful)…

1) Before I started seeing Betsy (and I didnt make this discovery about her until we were married), I had never, EVER, heard of anyone who ever skipped pages of a book, or, dare the thought, entire chapters…but now that I think about it, I was the only one of my friends that read books and I never talked to anyone about reading books, so because I read every page (to include preface, afterwords(sp?) and ackknowledgements, but then again I have always cleaned my plate) I assumed everyone else did. This is incredibly fascinating. I would like to see some research on this.

2) I almost bought Betsy the Sony version of the Kindle while we were living in Virginia and I read such poor reviews on the concept…then I read a piece on Slate further stating why it was a bad idea and I chose against it…one point in the article is that some people enjoying owning the book and putting it on their shelf when they are done, in some cases as a badge of honor. For instance, I have been slogging through the Barnes and Noble edition of the Tolstoy trifecta – Cossaks, Anna Korina, and the formidable War and Peace. I am almost done with the Cossaks (My problem is that I read 4 to 5 books at a time over the course of months, and my reading opprotunities vary greatly week to week) and I promise you this…the second I finish that entire 15 pound book I will build a golden shrine and sacrfice a fattened calf to honor MY dedication to literature. What was my point? Oh yeah, that people (especially “collectors” like me) like to own books and build a library…to show off (I am a sad pathetic man). It appears that you are above that, as I think Betsy would be too, so please let me know your thoughts on the Kindle as I may reevaluate my possible Christmas gifts for Betsy…of course the biggest question is: Is the Kindle two year old proof?

3) I dont think that book reading is dead…I just think that casual reading among the majority of folks is dead. The people with intellectual curiosity (man I hate my spelling) and a desire to learn will continue to soak up a wide variety of topics to feed their hunger/passion. The rest…well, they will be reading fewer and fewer books.

Bryant, I enjoy your blog. Keep it up.

Steve

@Jenn: I never thought I’d “give up” on books either but I think amazon really nailed it with the kindle. It’s enough like a book because it is not backlit and allows bookmarking and notetaking that they won me over.