Hotel Bibles on Kindle? I suppose it was inevitable, but have things gotten so futuristic already?
Hotel Bibles on Kindle, despite the ubiquity of ebooks and smartphones, still feels to be a bit fancy and tech-savvy. It seems that before we dispensed with the bible on paper books, we’d have dispensed with the tradition of bibles in hotel rooms to begin with.
But in 2012, you still can be reasonably assured that no matter where you stay at any end of the lodging spectrum, hotel bibles are a constant. (Which is interesting in and of itself, as one wonders how hotels can almost universally be persuaded to participate in this not-exactly-inclusive tradition.)
Britain’s Hotel Indigo in Newcastle is pioneering the trend, pre-loading the Bible onto Kindles in all the hotel’s 148 rooms. Guests can even download a religious text of their choice to the device, as long as it doesn’t cost more than£5 — which is an interesting wrinkle to the Gideon’s hotel Bible on Kindle situation. The bibles in hotels thing was meant to promote Christianity, not other religions!
Hotel Indigo manager Adam Munday explains why the property decided to put hotel Bibles on Kindle:
“In the 18th Century, Newcastle was one of the largest print centres in Britain and we’re in Grainger Town, close to the Literary and Philosophical Society,” he said. “We wanted to reflect this literary history in a very contemporary way, so are offering guests the use of cutting-edge Kindles pre-loaded with The Bible, instead of the more traditional hardcopy Gideon’s Bible that they would expect to find in a hotel.”
Would you read a given hotel Bible on Kindle if you happened upon one?
