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Steven Levy: Sorry I'm a little big late... got wrapped up in reading books on my Kindle! (actually, we had technical problems). I hope you all have heard about Amazon's new reading device and/or have seen my story on it, so I'm happy to take questions.

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Evanston, IL.: As a reader of large print books by necessity will I be able to read full sentances without the text being cut off at the margins?

Steven Levy: One of the nicer things about e-book readers like Kindle is that adjustable font size. When you make the text bigger, it flows naturally, so nothing is cut off. If your eyesight limits you to large text and you are unhappy with the selection of books in that form, a Kindle may be a no-brainer for you.

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Miami, FL: What are the chances that anyone will be able to read a digital book fifty, one hundred or one thousand years from now? Will e-books be lost to time once the devices made to read them are no longer available? How many classics will be lost to history if we use digital files exclusively?

Steven Levy: That's a great question, and I don't know the answer. On one hand, digital technology to date has not been a fantastic storage medium, since formats change, etc. One would have to hope that future generations, when they develop new technology, will take care to move over old stuff to the new formats.

When we read a copy of an older book now, it's a new printing. So you'd figure that new digital copies decades from now would piggyback on the old But there's no guarantee. The best scenario would be if we maintained the abilty to read old formats. Certainly in the future we will be able to store hundreds of thousands of books on very tiny devices. SO maybe this will help avoid a situation like the Library of Alexandria, where a crucial depository of knowledge burned down--with no backup!

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Monroe, NY: Did authors like Toni Morrison recieve an "appearance fee" for their video testimony related to the product?

Steven Levy: I didn't ask Amazon about that, so i don't know. If they did pay her an appearance fee it didn't extend to talking to the press, since Amazon gave me her agent's contact but she passed on the word she was too busy to elaborate on her comments for the video.

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Dallas, TX: So do you have to pay for each book you download? Or can you pay a fixed monthly rate and have access to a certain number of titles (a la Netflix)?

Steven Levy: The Kindle is definitely a la carte. I asked Jeff Bezos that very question you pose -- why not charge less for the device and require a certain amount of buying, like the Book of the Month Club or a cell phone contact. His answer was that Amazon wanted to really simplify things. No obligation to buy anything, no need to keep track of what you bought or how long the contract lasts. Maybe at a later point Amazon will adjust this strategy.

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San Francisco, CA: Do you think this Kindle will be as hot as the iPhone?

Steven Levy: No, because when you use the iPhone a lot it feels very warm on your cheek and the Kindle is not a heat source. Seriously, I think that since the Kindle is a category that most people aren't familiar with (as opposed to the iPhone, which improves the experience of a device people feel they must own and use) it will not take off as quickly, particularly since the price is so high. Amazon is in this for the long term, though, and hope that as years go on, people will, uh, warm to the idea.

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New York, NY: Part of the experience of writing a book sometimes means writing notes in the margins. Is there a way to do that with the kindle?

Steven Levy: Yes, you can add notes to the books (and perodicals) you read, using the thumb-based keyboard on the bottom. Downside: it's not as fast as scrawling. Upside: you don't mess up the book, and Amazon backs up your notes. Maybe future Kindles will support stylus-style scrawling, and even allow you to send it back to your computers to change your chicken-scratches into digital text!

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Tampa, FL: How many different font options will you have?

Steven Levy: There are six sizes.

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NY, NY: how rugged is the kindle? is it a relatively fragile piece of technology? or is it something i can throw in a tote bag and take to the beach?

Steven Levy: I haven't put it through the drop test, but it's certainly tough enough to pass that tote bag test, and Bezos himself has said that it's ready to go to the beach. (The screen works in sunlight.) The screen is more plastic-y than glassy, so you don't feel that a short fall would ruin it, but again, I haven't slammed it on a marble countertop or anything. There is a semi-protective case.

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New York, NY: I understand that you can also read the newspaper on Kindle. You wrote that it didn't look like the front page, but was more of a list of articles. Why couldn't it look like the way the newspaper appears on the web? Is it tougher to read on Kindle? If so, why?

Steven Levy: The current mode of navigation, which is a thing called a "select wheel" which moved a marker up and down a "cursor bar" works well in the reading mode, but doesn't allow for the more flexible cursor-based control that a laptop uses to great advantage in a program like the Times Reader (available for free for NY Times subscribers, BTW, and highly recommended). So getting to all the articles you want to read (and figuring out what they are) is a little awkward on Kindle. Maybe one day we'll have a touch-screen Kindle and that will be improved.

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Warren, MA: Hi Steve,

I've been getting pretty wrapped up in audio books that I listen to on my iPod. I even listen to podcast summaries of magazines on the way work. Do you think audio files are a serious rival either to printed books or the digital books?

Steven Levy: I think that podcasts and audio books are great, particularly in situations like the car or gym. The Kindle supports Audible books and also plays MP3s, though I don't think it will keep Steve Jobs up at night worry about competition to the iPod. I see audio books as a supplement to printed (or digital) ones.

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Riverside, CA: I really don't have a question. I just want to say that I- and many others like me-would never in a million years trade the intimacy and tangibility of an actual book for any type of electronic reading device. Imagine reading Dostoyevsky or Thomas Mann or Virginia Woolf and not having the satisfaction of turning the page or holding the book in your hands or smelling the musk of the paper. Really, this whole thing sounds like a horrible scheme to mechanize the entire reading experience and suck every drop of romance and intimacy from it.

Steven Levy: Even though this isn't a question, I'll respond to it. I love books. I have written six of them, and my house and office is packed with books. I have bought and drooled over rare books. But to say that the spells of the great authors you mention is due to the smell of the paper and the necessity of turning pages is to belittle the genius of those writers. Woolf and Dostoyevsky did not write on printing presses--books were simply a wonderful medium to present their works to readers. Now almost every writer writes on a computer. If an electronic device can do as Jeff Bezos hopes his will -- to make the device disappear and leave only you and the author present --then you will get the same romance and intimacy that you did from a book. Those wonderful associations you have (and I have to) are due to the magic of the words within.

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Houston, TX: What did you like least about the device?

Steven Levy: I don't like the DRM that limits what I can do with a book (why not email a passage to myself? Or lend it to a friend? Or sell it when I'm done?). The navigation of periodicals can be improved. And as a consumer, I think $399 is a very steep price, though new devices are often costly when they first arrive.

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Atlanta, GA: Would you prefer to read all your books on kindle or go back and forth? What's the benefit of carrying around a kindle over carrying around a paperback? (Besides the large font option).

Steven Levy: I think I'd be happy usingt Kindle for most of the books I read but probably not all. I read "The Bridge of Sighs," novelist Richard Russo's new book on a Kindle and enjoyed it, then I saw a signed copy on sale at a store To be honest I really like a signed copy of a first edition of a good novel. As for the advantage of carrying a Kindle as opposed to a paperback, are you kidding? ON a trip I can store dozens of books on a Kindle, as well as magazines, newspapers and word documents. It weighs less than a single paperback, and you can read while you eat without having to put a salt shaker on a page to prevent pages from turning on their own. And on a whim you can buy a book from anywhere.

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Littleton, CO: Mr. Levy,

Research on school dropout rates suggests that literacy-related issues are among the top causes. Students struggle with reading and writing for a multitude of reasons. How in the heck is this going to help?

Steven Levy: My feeling is that technological developments --not just Kindle but websites like Amazon and initiatives like Google Book Search and the many literary blogs and discussions groups--can help by leading people to discover books they may like, and pick up on excitment about books from friends and others. But there's no substitute for a love of reading imparted by parents and teachers early in life.

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Portland, OR: What are the best features of Kindle?

Steven Levy: My favorite is the ability to buy a new book anywhere and have it ready to read in less than a minute. Especially if the price is low.

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San Antonio, TX: What would the next generation of the kindle look like? What enhancements does Bezos plan to make?

Steven Levy: He isn't sharing his plans (wouldn't it be nice to have a tech giant, just once, say, "Here is my new gizmo, but in two years I plan to release another one with THIS and THIS and THIS.") But if I were to guess I would think that future devices would have color screens and touch navigation.

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Boston, MA: How long will a book live on this handheld device? Until you download the next book? Would you be able to have 2 books on there at once?

Steven Levy: The Kindle holds 100 of them, and a low-cost memory card will hold hundreds more. When your Kindle fills up, you can move books to Amazon's servers where you are granted unlimited space. If you lose a Kindle, Amazon will replace the books you bought when you get another Kindle. As long as Amazon lives, you will have your books. (Kindle owners will hope Amazon lives a long time.)

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New York, NY: As you noted in your story, Sony was ahead of Amazon with its Reader. And now it's releasing a new and improved version later this fall. But how will it compare to a kindle. Will each device be able to load the same books? Or are we looking at another betamax/vhs and hddvd-blu-ray war here?

Steven Levy: Unfortunately, a book you buy on one will not work on the other. I have tested the new edition of the Reader (I own an original) and while it is improved, it is not drasticaly changed. The big difference is that Kindle is connected wirelessly to a bookstore that will sell you a book instantly, and there is no computer required to operate a Kindle.

Jeff Bezos told me that in theory, he's open to other device makers connecting to the Kindle store. If I were Sony, I woudl take him up on it --the Sony bookstore is no match for Amazon.com, and if Sony charged a lot less for a nice looking e-reader which connected to Amazon via computer, it might have a nice niche.

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Shanghai, China: Will it work in China?

Since moving to Shanghai seven months ago, I have bought more than 50 books from Amazon. It takes 3 to 4 weeks for the books to get here. And there's no free shipping with my orders all exceeding $25.00. Shipping has cost me about 50% of the cost of the books, though this is not the only reason I want to get a Kindle.

So why no shipment overseas? Would it work on a USB port if I used it in Shanghai?

Steven Levy: My impression is, not now, but maybe Amazon will figure out a way you can download a Kindle book and move it to your device via USB or a memory card.

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Monroe, NY: What is this technology's impact on free speech? Wouldn't a future government have a much easier time suppressing or editing writing that's in digital form than they would if it was in it's traditional form?

Steven Levy: Great question, and one I hope we don't find answered in the wrong way. Ultimately our protection is not to stop technology but to demand that our leaders preserve the ideals of the Constitution.

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Oakland, CA: I read the explanation behind the name, but really--kindle? It's just not catchy at all. Do you think the name will inhibit sales?

Steven Levy: It does have a potentially weird angle to it -- books and fire don't mix, do they? -- but I always prefer a real name to a number (Sony's new Reader is the 505, and I don't think it's a Beatle tribute.)

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Detroit, MI:

Q.1 The device seems ideal for students. Will text books be available?

Q.2 Will technical books with charts and graphs be a part of the catalogue?

Steven Levy: I think that the Kindle can handle graphs and charts as well as display pictures. (only in black and white, though). It seems that text book availablity will depend on whether the publishers are onboard. I would think they would like the idea of selling a textbook that cannot be then sold to another student as a used book.

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Oak Park, IL: I'm old school, love books, bookshelves, piles of books, etc.

I have lived the computer revolution, the cellphone

revolution and the music revolution. How can anyone not

look at this and see the birth of a truly next stage in

history, technology and knowledge, like Gutenberg? Am I

overstating the significance of this?

Steven Levy: I, too, see Kindle as a milestone in a path that is inevitable. Sooner or later -- I'm talking a long time -- electronic books will be the rule and printed books the exception. My article tried to deal with some of the consequences of that.

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Boynton Beach, FL: I'm a bit put off by the price tag, especially if I also have to pay for each book I order. Do you think the price will go down?

Should I wait?

Steven Levy: If the price of Kindle did not go down, it would be an exception to every major computer-based product in the last twenty-five years. Yes, I'd venture to day taht eventually Amazon will sell these for less (and sell much improved versions for similar prices, too). But some people, those early adopers and people who read a lot and/or travel a lot, will want to see what the Kindle can do for them now. It's a classic dilemma when it comes to new products.

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Steven Levy: Lots of questions today. There is obviously a lot of curiosity about the Kindle as well as both excitment and some consternation (among traditionalists). It has been a great experience to write about this topic, and of course I will keep following what happens in the e-reading world. Happy holidays to all!

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