Amazon's Kindle: That's One Pricey Library Card!

The folks at Amazon.com have always appreciated a good book. Books were the first things ever sold at Amazon, and the company changed the habits of book buyers forever. Today Amazon is expected to launch Kindle—an electronic book (e-book) reader. No surprise, at launch it will offer thousands of books available via digital download.

Rumors of the device began surfacing late last week. Then Newsweek magazine's Steven Levy wrote this week's multipage cover story on Kindle. According to his report, Kindle feels kind of bookish, with the dimensions of a paperback. It runs quietly and coolly for as long as 30 hours without needing a battery recharge. It mimics the look of print but offers e-features like changeable font sizes (to the delight of every baby boomer who misplaced their reading glasses).

Levy says Kindle can hold 200 books on board, more with an external memory card. But the feature that leaves other book readers behind is the connectivity. It uses an EV-DO-like connection so that you don't need to find a hotspot to download a new book to read. You can connect from just about anywhere using the cellular network. Plus you can get surf the Internet, download newspapers and magazines, search for text, and more. The Kindle is expected to cost $399; books will cost approximately $10.

Levy, you may remember, also wrote "Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything," a book about Apple's Steve Jobs. The reviews praised the writing but not Levy's rose-colored glasses-approach to Apple's business. To say he's exuberant about certain new technologies is an understatement. And Levy seems to put Kindle into the same category as the Mac: a life-changing device.

The Kindle photo that's been circulating on the Internet is the same one that made the rounds in 2006 as a prototype. I sure hope they've prettied it up some because I'm underwhelmed. Much more attractive looking is Sony's e-Reader. But the Sony required a download to your PC and then to your e-book reader. Kindle will go direct to download, and knowing Amazon, purchasing will be a breeze.

I was once almost killed when the weight of my overloaded bookshelf buckled my floor, causing the entire floor-to-ceiling shelf to topple on me. Monday morning I'll be attending the Amazon launch event in NYC (just a few blocks from the New York Public Library). For $400, I could buy 40 cheap paperbacks or the keys to an ever-changing kingdom of books. I'll let you know what I think after the official launch.