To Kindle or not Kindle, that is the question

Answer of the (yester)day:

I stuck to the two-volume-set of Richard's Julia Ward Howe offered at abebooks and paid the 50 bucks. For that I will even get a first edition which is, acording to the description, in very good condition. Unfortunatelly, acording to the seller, the volumes will, mainly because of Christmas, only be delivered on January 6th. So give me just a day or two to think of what to do, to keep the starting date originaly set on January 1st.

That I ordered a printed copy does not at all mean, I opose e-books in general. I do even own a Kindle (the very basic kind, but with a nice black leather cover). To  tell you the truth: I didn't really buy it. It came as a give-away for buying a tothbrush at Amazon...

Today the question wether to use ebook readers or not kind of kindles the mind of readers. Ask two people and get three opinions on the question. As for myself, I think that Kindle&Co. present the modern way of reading and surely open the field for young people to read. That's the good thing. Furthermore, one should keep up with the times anyhow, for if you are not, you get old quite fast. However (and that's a big however), I am one hundert percent sure that the good old printed book will endure, maybe in the very long run it will even prevail. There are several reasons that make me so sure about that: First, it's the feeling of holding the book in your hands and turning page after page that an ebook will never be able to satisfy. Secondly it's simply question of perdurability. There are books in our libraries that are over 300 years old. Something makes me doubt that a file, may it be e-pub or kindle-format, will ever last that long.

As a result I can promise you, that one or the other book in this enterprise will be read as e-book. In principal I will, as far as my funds permit it, try and gain printed copies of the books to be read. The main reason for that being, that in the end, I would like to stand in front of the bookshelf and say: "I read 'em all!"

Question of today:
As the first book to be read will be late, what's the alternative?