Bookish Dept.

First, a note about my revised convention schedule:

• Otakon (end of July)
• AnimeFest (beginning of September)
• NYAF (October)
• MangaNext (end of October)

MangaNext is of course the sister convention to AnimeNext, and the more I hear about it the more I like it. It's smaller, friendlier, more "bookish" (perfect fit for me), and they have a swap meet. Expect a closet-cleaning to take place well in advance of that.

Also, a discussion at GigaOm about why the Kindle will win the e-book wars: 1) Amazon has a buy-once-read-anywhere system in place that supersedes the Kindle device itself; 2) Amazon is a brand that is trusted with both books and technology; 3) Amazon also "gets" software, and should do all it can to foster and nurture that.

I agree with about 2 1/2 of these three points, and the only place I really dissent is in that Amazon may "win" but that doesn't mean I feel the battle will end with them — no more so than, say, HD's evolution ended with Blu-ray beating HD-DVD. There's a lot of work to be done with e-books that Amazon hasn't even started to touch yet. What will they do about books that are heavy on visuals (e.g., comics)? Will they allow Kindle productions to be automatically translated into print-on-demand items as well? (It would only make sense.) Will they eventually allow books to be loaned, traded, resold? Even if they're still copy-protected at every step of the transaction?

In theory, I already own a Kindle: I downloaded the PC app and bought several books in the format. I'm interested in seeing if the long-vaunted Kindle app for Android changes my reading habits. But the vast majority of what I'm interested in reading still isn't offered as Kindle product, and so for me the incentive to make the Kindle that much more a part of how I read is low. Maybe next decade.