2017-11-22

2007年年底，Kindle 正式发布。转眼间，它迎来了自己的十周年生日。Kindle 的命名来自于伏尔泰名言中的智慧之火，他认为书籍能够点燃智慧之火。电子阅读器的问世让读者能够直接下载电子版图书进行阅读。数据显示，电子图书在美国的年市值高达10亿美元。与此同时，兰登书屋总裁杜乐盟 (Markus Dohle) 在今年的法兰克福图书展上表示，电子图书与纸质图书保持着和平共存的关系，纸质图书仍然占据市场销量的80%。据报道，Kindle 的最新一代 Oasis 在两米深的淡水下仍旧不会受到损害。面对功能越来越强大，上手越来越便捷的电子书，也不知道“书虫们”在未来是否还会一如既往地拥戴纸质书呢？

Don't Burn Your Books: E-Readers

① At the Kindle's launch, Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, cited hieroglyphics, the Codex and Guttenberg's invention of the printing press before declaring that the book had officially entered the digital age.

② The e-reader, named after the intellectual "fire" that Voltaire said books can spark, turns ten tomorrow.

③ It was the first device to let users download e-books directly—a market that in America is now worth around $1bn a year.

④ Yet at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair, Markus Dohle, the boss of Penguin Random House, a publisher, observed that print still accounts for 80% of sales.

⑤ He termed it "a healthy co-existence" between print and digital markets.

⑥ Oasis, the Kindle's newest incarnation, can survive under two metres of fresh water.

⑦ Now that there's a "bookshop in your pocket" that copes with the bath and beach, will bookworms be so loyal to their soggy paperbacks?

▍生词好句

kindle /ˈkɪnd(ə)l/: vt. 点燃 (中文指 Kindle 电子阅读器)

hieroglyphics /hʌɪrəˈɡlɪfɪks/: n. 象形文字 (尤指古埃及的象形文字)

codex /ˈkəʊdɛks/: n. (古代典籍) 手抄本

printing press: 印刷机

incarnation /ɪnkɑːˈneɪʃ(ə)n/: n. 化身；体现

cope with: 应付；应对

bookworm /ˈbʊkwəːm/: n. 书虫；爱书之人

soggy /ˈsɒɡi/: adj. 湿漉漉的

paperback /ˈpeɪpəbak/: n. 平装本书籍 (文中强调“纸质书”)