Nicholson Baker reviews Kindle 2

Nicholson Baker asks in this week's New Yorker, "Can the Kindle really improve on the book?" His answer, so far, seems to be "not yet." The Vizplex electronic paper is less legible than print, and DRM constraints are especially problematic: "Kindle books aren't transferable. You can't give them away or lend them or sell them. You can't print them. They are closed clumps of digital code that only one purchaser can own. A copy of a Kindle book dies with its possessor" (p. 27).