Readin' Writin' and 'Rithmatic 2010

Many of my friends actually read. They used to buy books, even best seller mysteries in hard cover when they first came out. They cost over $20 per book even with the 30% discount at Barnes and Noble, Borders, or Books a Million...and lets not forget about Amazon.com plus shipping. You either had to wait for the mail, or drive to the store. Today's reader has a lot of options, and they just got even cheaper, except for Mac which got more expensive. Kindle from Amazon is the gold standard. You can get a zillion free books and those other books you used to pay $20+ for at the store are available in electronic form for $9.95...mostly. You get them directly from cyberspace into your book reader. It's magic. Barnes and Noble has one called Nook, as does Borders. Borders sells theirs for about $150 which caused Kindle and Nook to lower their prices from out of the stratosphere to below $200 for their machines.

Never to be outdone in electronic gizmo development, Apple released the iPad (many jokes about feminine products notwithstanding) to huge rave reviews. Their product does everything an iPhone and most laptops do and is also a book reader. It is available in a large range from $400-$800 depending on storage, WiFi, and 3G capability. It has a color backlit screen. My friends who have both an iPad and a Kindle prefer the iPad by a large margin but if they were to be reading a book in bright light on the beach they would go for the Kindle (type). Kindle looks like a page from a book in the sun but can't be read in the dark without lighting your reading space. This is the opposite of the iPad which is hard to see in bright light yet easy in the dark.

There is a third option...all these book giants and Apple have Apps that can be downloaded to you iPhone, Blackberry, or either Windows or Mac computers. The book prices are the same. So, if you like to read there are lots of option from FREE (your existing laptop or cellphone) to $800. The pages look the same. IF you are tired of reading books...log on to islandoracle.blogspot.com. See Ya.