I did it. I bought a Kindle.....and I love it.
I actually really properly love it. This has surprised me actually, as I honestly never expected too. Even when I’d ordered it and was waiting for it to arrive there was a level of apprehension mixed in with the excitement; I couldn't help wondering if I'd just made a very expensive mistake. And then it arrived, and I opened the box and looked it lying there. I picked it up for the first time and realised how nicely it fitted into my hand; how nice it felt. I switched it on and I set it up and I downloaded my first book and I sat and I read it and I realised I had just fallen in love.
People have asked my why I needed a Kindle: ‘you’re a book girl. What are you doing?’ I know, I know and believe me I tortured myself about that fact for a good long while. I spent a lot of time feeling like I was betraying my (full to bursting) bookshelves, going against everything I believed in. The thing is, I don't not love books now just because I have a Kindle. If anything I appreciate them more. I will never ever not buy books, not love books, not wander into my attic just to look at my books. It's not an either or; nothing has been forsaken.
Or, ‘you have an iPad, why not just get the Kindle app?” The iPad is not an e-reader. The interface is entirely different. The e-reader function on an iPad is gimmicky: reading on an iPad you’re never just reading. You’re always aware that you’re reading on something that is not a book and you’re tempted to check your emails or try the next level of Angry Birds and the screen is bright and as neat as the page turning function is (and believe me I had SUCH fun turning pages when I first got my iPad), it takes more effort than I want to make when I am lost in a book and it's too big. The Kindle is invisible. Not actually invisible, obviously, we’re not at Hogwarts now (more’s the pity) but totally unobtrusive; it’s simple; it does what it says on the box, nothing more and nothing less; it’s focussed solely and completely on the reading experience and not on little quirks that make it cool. With the Kindle there is just you and the words. It weighs next to nothing; the screen is amazing; you can read the biggest book in the world and never get arm ache (I am often put off from reading massive books because I read mostly in bed and my arms get tired sometimes just holding a paperback) and I can have books on my Kindle within 60 seconds. That’s from shop to shelf in a MINUTE people. I can carry it around in my bag and read it on the train and the spine never gets bent and the page corners never get tatty. I just read 5 books on holiday and they took up no space at all in my case & something in me gets a kick out of being able to say that I’m 58% of the way through Wuthering Heights. I like that much more than page numbers. My Kindle has become my new best friend.
That’s not to say it’s perfect – what friend is, after all? It’s not as tactile as a book. I could never replace books entirely. The very thought makes me feel a little queasy. If I had no books then I’d miss the smell and the feel and the sound. I get a lot of pleasure out of books as objects and sitting in my attic surrounded by my books instantly makes me feel more relaxed. I like to look at them on my shelves; I like to pick them up and touch them and breathe them in; I like how pretty they look with their individual covers. You lose all of that on the Kindle. If I lived in a Kindle only world I would be a very sad girl. A world with no book covers would be like a world with no light. In fact, if I could change anything about the Kindle it would be that when I put it on standby the portrait of famous literary figures would be replaced by the cover of the book I was reading. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Every cloud has a silver lining though: with no book covers my guilty pleasures can remain secret. Nobody ever needs to know that I sat on the train the other week reading an LJ Smith ‘Vampire Diaries’ book because like a best friend should, the Kindle keeps my secrets for me.
Since buying my Kindle, I have the best of both worlds and it suits me just fine.
