Book versus Kindle, on video

July 31, 2009 12:08 PM PT

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San Francisco’s Green Apple Books has decided to pit the old-fashioned book against Amazon’s Kindle in a series of funny, low-rent ESPN-style video showdowns. By today, the third round of the competition, the book is beating the Kindle, 2-0.

Green Apple sells both new and used books and music -- its first episode showed a customer selling used books back to the store (the Kindle didn’t measure up). But if no one wanted to buy vintage paperbacks, comics or hardcovers, then Green Apple wouldn’t be interested in purchasing them for resale. In fact, the customer is sent away with many books that the store doesn’t want to buy. Would it be possible that electronic books and e-readers might erase the value of books as objects completely? That’s not in the video, but it is the bigger question.

Like a boxing match, there will be 10 rounds in the book-versus-Kindle matchup. The team at Green Apple Books says they’ve collaborated on the project, so nobody takes full credit. Keep up with all their videos on their blog and find out when the next one posts by following them on Twitter.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

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Carolyn Kellogg

Carolyn Kellogg is a prize-winning writer who served as Books editor of the Los Angeles Times for three years. She joined the L.A. Times in 2010 as staff writer in Books and left in 2018. In 2019, she was a judge of the National Book Award in Nonfiction. Prior to coming to The Times, Kellogg was editor of LAist.com and the web editor of the public radio show Marketplace. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh and a BA in English from the University of Southern California.