Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Kindle

When Kindles first came on the market I thought they were stupid & that they only people that would buy them were the same people who though having a calculator watch in the 80s was the coolest thing ever. How could you not love the feel of a real book in your hand, he weight of it, the texture of the paper, those are all part of reading a book & no machine could give you that feeling.

And then I moved, with boxes & boxes, bags & bags of books. Once we got settled in I decided the books needed a bit of a cull. I got rid of over 70 books & you couldn't tell I'd gotten rid of any.

Then I had to buy another copy of a book I'd owned; one I'd bought at least 3 times in my life. First time it was $5, second time it was $6-7, this time it'd be $9, plus I knew I'd read it to tatters again & have to buy it again. I'd be $20 in to this book & a Kindle copy would be $8 & I wouldn't wear the book out. That's a pretty good idea I thought.

I have a bunch of authors who put out a new book each year & while I always wait for paperback those books take up a lot of space & wear out. That's what won me over. Yeah there are some books I'll never be without a real copy of, but there are plenty of authors that a copy on the Kindle is plenty good for. Plus I realized I could always have a good book that exactly what I was in the mood to read with me. Add to that it plays music & that it has a free web browser (it's as slow as when we were all stuck working the net on Windows 3.11) & I was sold. My parents went halves on it & got it for me for Giftmas, best gift I've gotten in years.

The only downside to it is that when you get it you instantly want to buy 500 books, but that's not usually in ones budget. So each month I buy 3-4 books. It's more than I usually spend since I'm a used book junkie, but slowly I will be replacing the books that I love to re-read so that after 6 months or so I expect that I will be down to 1-2 a month & since I won't be replacing so many that will end up being a savings.
My Kindle & Case

So in the end I became a pretty big fan of the Kindle & I think a lot of bibliophiles will be swayed for the same reasons. The fact it holds a whole library in a tiny little device, that you can have that whole library no matter where you are, the fact you never have to re-buy. The only thing that will piss off the bibliophiles is that you can't sell or give away books. That part eats & I am glad that they did decide to allow sharing of books & wish that all the publishers would allow it, I think they will & I think in the end you'll be allowed to give books away too, but it'll be a while before they do.

4 comments:

  1. I'm totally with you on this one. I love my nook - and I sort of hate that I love it - but I do.

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  2. Too funny, I pretty much said the same exact thing word for word, and was prompted to buy a kindle after moving box after box after box of very heavy books. I finally got one about a week ago, and now I'm scared to use it until my accessories come.

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  3. j - it's funny it was like a switch got flipped; i was so anti-ereader & then suddenly i was in love.

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  4. Nik - Since there are pretty good odds I'll be moving in the next year I really want to reduce some of my "junk" books, you know those mass market fun reads & stuff like that. Even if every book ever published was on Kindle/nook/whatever there are still titles I'd have to own in a real book, but truth be told that number is around 50-100 books from my collection. A hundred books & a Kindle is a lot easier to move than the current library I own.

    What accessories did you buy for it?

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