To Kindle or Not to Kindle

To Kindle or not to Kindle?

 

So, I took the plunge last week and ordered myself up a Kindle 2. Note: that is not my hand in the picture to your right. (I went for the smaller size rather than the DX, a larger model with a bigger screen said to be better for newspaper and magazine reading.) Once they came down below $300 I felt I could rationalize that the cost of buying books at less-than ten bucks a pop would eventually translate into the thing paying for itself, not to mention save me all those arguments with those I live with about us not having any more room on our shelves for MORE books. An argument that was, well, hard to argue with.

 

Here’s what’s great about it besides the above-mentioned cost-per-book savings:

 

1. You can order up new books from anywhere and get them IMMEDIATELY. It used to be great buying books online and only have to wait three days or so for them to arrive. Now you wait sixty seconds. From an airport, from a train, from a hotel room, from your home or office, it’s easy to browse, easy to sample, easy to buy.

 

2. The obvious one of is, of course, being able to carry as many books, magazines, newspapers as you like, all on this very slim, I-pod looking device slimmer than a very small paperback and about the length of a number 2 pencil. Apart from the advantages when one is traveling, even for a short weekend, and not having to pack many books or having to decide what you might be in the mood to read, it’s nice to have one device to carry with you even when just puttering around the house.

 

3. Typeface can change font sizes. You can go larger or smaller, depending on your age, your eyesight, or even your mood. No more need for large-print books if you’re of the older set needing larger print.

 

4. You never lose your place. The Kindle 2 always keeps track of where you left off reading, so you don’t get any children pulling that bookmark out of your book and losing your place.

 

5. Maybe because of the above feature, or because there are usually fewer words on the “page,” reading for shorter periods of time seems more inviting with a Kindle 2. A hard one to completely explain, but true enough.

 

6. You can switch to audio mode for when you’re in the car, or wanting to cook and read at the same time, and the voice will pick up on the page that you’re on and start reading it aloud. This is a good and bad thing as the voice is computer generated and sounds a bit like Stephen Hawking reading to you. Words like futon can be mispronounced as FOOT-IN.

 

 

Here’s what’s less-great about it:

 

1. While the Kindle 2 keeps track of what percentage of the book you’ve read at the bottom of the screen, it’s not quite the same as seeing the progress you’re making with a real book. There are not page numbers on the Kindle 2 that correspond with the actual book, so you don’t really know how many pages the book is or how far you have left to go, other than 62% more. With THE LIKENESS by Tana French, for example, which I’m reading now, I had to go to a bookstore to find out that there were 480 or something pages, and so if I was 40 percent done, I was on page two-hundred-something. Percentages don’t really tell you if it’s a long or short book.

 

2. Along these same lines, you can’t anticipate, or easily leaf ahead to find out where the next chapter break is. Somehow I like to know where the next rest-stop is when I read, and so that takes a little getting used to.

 

3. You can’t read it in the bathtub. Drop a book into the water, you get a book wet, or worse-case-scenario, ruin one book. Drop your Kindle 2 in water, and you sort of can ruin your whole library—this is true for dropping out of a backpack, too, or simply leaving somewhere.

 

4. Battery needs to be recharged. While it’s got a long battery life (as in a few days, usually), and is easy enough to keep charged, the fact remains it’s possible to run out of battery at a climactic point in your book. Bummer.

 

5. Books are so easy to buy and download, you could end up buying more books than you normally do, and find yourself not reading all of them.

 

6. Miss those covers. Can no longer judge a book by its cover. Text only when you buy a Kindle book.

 

7. You have to buy from Amazon.com, as opposed to independent bookstores, and so there’s that whole moral dilemma.

 

Despite these pros and cons, however, I guess what I’m most struck by is how not

different it is to read via Kindle 2 as opposed to a regular book. Once you get over the self-consciousness that you’re holding this sort of high-tech device to read with, it’s still just words on the page....or rather, screen. You turn these pages/screen by pushing a button rather than actually “turning” a page, but there’s very little difference. It’s convenient, it might end up being cost-efficient, and it’s kind of cool. Bottom line: While it hasn’t changed my life, I’m feeling no buyer’s remorse either. [July 22, 2009]