Book Glutton: I’m Not Sure about Profit, But I’m Hooked

After my initial skepticism, I decided that Amazon's Kindle was going on my dream list of electronics. I never seem to have a book when I want it, and sometimes I'm just tired of reading whatever paperback I haven't removed from my bag or my news feeds. However, the Kindle's one-two punch of hardware pricing added on to book pricing ($399 for the Kindle plus, say, 50 books at an average of $10 a piece?) puts it out of my range.

Enter Book Glutton, a web-based online reader that does a really nice job of replicating the actual book experience. I'm thinking of it as a Web 2.0 Kindle. Using books that are in the public domain (such as those classics you only read Cliff Notes for in high school), Book Glutton lets you not only read with the Book Glutton Reader, but also form groups around books for discussion, annotate the text, bookmark the place you left off, and chat with others reading the same book (you can limit it to the section you are on to avoid spoilers).

Prospective authors can also upload their own works for reading groups and critiques; since the uploads reside on the Book Glutton server and are read within the reader, more protection is afforded the author than posting on a blog or similar venue, and the author still owns all copyright.

The site itself has a nice design, but it's nearly drowned out by ads, which I assume is their revenue model at the moment. The site FAQ states that the plan is to keep present services free in perpetuity, but I think an excellent plan would be to offer the reader application as a desktop application. There are a lot of times when I have my laptop but don't necessarily have Internet connectivity when I'd love to be able to break out a book to read, and that's something I'd be willing to pay for. Even better would be a partnership with Amazon to utilize some of the Kindle content for those of us who find the price point of the Kindle plus media a bit out of our range. The interface is “book-like” enough that I don't mind the laptop reading (and I'm a person who shudders at the PDF even for user manuals), and I'd love to see something even along the lines of an online rental system where you could read and return.

I've seen several “new” ways of reading books, but Book Glutton may hold the most promise for the non-tech-geek or tech geek on a limited budget who still wants a paperless way to read.