The Kindle
I recently bought a Kindle, which is a device made by Amazon for reading electronic books. Consequently, I’ve been called an heretic by true book lovers. But after spending a few weeks with this thing, I don’t care how heretical (or nerdy) it is. Rather than monopolizing precious shelf-space while collecting dust, scads of books now fit into a very slim piece of hardware. The Kindle is easy to set up, and even easier to read—even in direct sunlight—thanks to its “E-Ink” technology. Perhaps most amazing is that I have been able read novels for three to four hours a night—for over two weeks—without having to recharge the battery.
Readable even in direct sunlight.
In addition, while this may not be the case for everyone, I find I am able to read more quickly from this screen than from the pages of actual books. I’m not sure what explains that. Anyway, you can also shrink or enlarge the text to suit your preference (handy for when you’re reading in bed without glasses or contacts), change the layout from portrait to landscape, and increase or decrease the margin width to shorten the distance your eyes need to travel across any given line of text. Oh yeah, it also plays mp3s and audio books, if you’re into that.
Literally thousands of classic books have been made available in electronic format through programs like Project Gutenberg, and you can have them all at your fingertips in minutes, gratis. Thus, you never actually have to buy any books from Amazon to experience decades’ worth of quality reading on a Kindle. But if you are into modern works of literature, or if you just like browsing the bookstore shelves for something new and interesting to read, you can take advantage of a little trick. Walk into a Barnes & Noble store and find a few titles that interest you. Then look them up on Amazon using your web-enabled phone. Chances are, the book you want is available on Amazon in Kindle format for $9.99, which will generally be a fraction of the cost of the printed copy.
Kindle DX (with optional Cover)
Of course, if you prefer browsing Facebook to reading the works of Mandeville and you want (for some reason) a version of the iPhone that’s too big for your pocket and yet lacks a camera feature, buy Apple’s latest waste of space: the iPad. You’ll have a great time downloading Justin Bieber and similar idiocy from iTunes in your living room from the iPad’s fancy touch screen, while your neglected MacBook (which can do the same things and more) sits only ten feet away from you. But if you’re on a dreary flight across the deserts of the American West and want to get lost in the imagination of Jules Verne, check out the Kindle.
