Amazon Kindle
I was tremendously resistant to this thing for quite a while. When my friends raved about their Kindles, I went on and on about my love for the printed page, book design, typography, tradition, and anything else I could think of.
Finally, my niece convinced me to give the Kindle a try. I have to say that after about 15 minutes with it, the device completely disappears and you are simply reading. Better yet, you are reading with less eyestrain and a more ergonomic device than a physical book — so much so that I find myself somewhat annoyed when I have to read an actual book. It's kind of like having to repeatedly dial an old rotary phone.
I have to mention that if you buy a Kindle through the link below (or the one on this site's home page) you will be helping to support this site, but I swear that my comments here are genuine. In fact, if you are patient, you can Google "refurbished Kindle" or go to eBay and possibly find yourself a better deal.
The kindle is much easier to read outside in the sun than a traditional book and it's also much easier to read where I do most of my reading — in bed. When reading in bed, you don't have to change your position to turn the page or to switch from a left-hand page to a right-hand page. On the Kindle, they're all in the same place. Better yet, the light is the same on every page.
You do need a light to read a Kindle in the dark. Unlike a computer screen, there is no backlight on the kindle. The up side of this it that reading the Kindle doesn't lead to the kind of eyestrain that you would get from reading a computer screen. I've read my Kindle for six hours straight without the slightest eye trouble.
As icing on the cake, I found that there were countless classic items available for free on the Kindle. I say "items" rather than books, not because they aren't really books, but because they were often collections. One Kindle "item" I downloaded was the complete works of William Shakespeare (which I can now search for quotations and favorite scenes using the Kindle's search function).
Many of the free offerings were books I had always meant to read but just hadn't gotten around to, either because they were hard to find, or because they were thick and expensive. I just finished Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. I'm still working my way through the lesser-known works of Collins, Dickens, Dumas, Beaudelaire, Dostoevsky, Anatole France, Zola, Hugo, Balzac, Flaubert and many others. I also discovered no less than 50 free books by H. Rider Haggard that I have yet to download.
Note that many of the free books are now available for download on Amazon.com if you scroll past the ones Amazon is selling. They apparently consider them loss leaders and would rather have you visiting their site than looking for them elsewhere on the Web.
Another tremendous rush, for me anyway, is to see a book on Amazon.com that I'd like to have and download it to my Kindle in seconds for $10 or less. I also like the thought that the Kindle versions are never out of stock or out of print. You can also have multiple Kindles attached to the same Amazon account so my spouse and I can read the same books at the same time (albeit at different speeds).
As for the question of Kindle 1 versus Kindle 2 Versus Kindle DX, I am more-or-less an agnostic. The Kindle 1 versus Kindle 2 issue is a wash, in my opinion. The Kindle 1 has a replaceable battery and an SD card slot, the Kindle 2 has slightly better ergonomics and more memory. I bought a refurbished Kindle 1 (actually, two of them to stop fighting over who got the Kindle) thinking that the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. After using it for a while, however, the SD card didn't work they way I thought it would (you can't "hide" content there that you plan to read later — well, you can, but it's inconvenient enough that I never do it) and the battery is a non-issue for me because mine is plugged into the wall unless I'm reading it outside.
The Kindle DX has a much bigger screen, but I would only recommend it to people who spend a lot of time reading newspapers and magazines because you have to hold it with two hands. I read no newspapers or magazines on the Kindle, but, if I did, I'd consider having a DX in addition to my smaller Kindle.
By now, there are enough Kindles out there that you ought to be able to try one before you buy. You may, indeed, be one of the people who prefers the actual printed page. I certainly thought I was, but I was seriously mistaken.
Thank you for visiting WordsMatter.softville.com
— Bob Ray
