eReaders…Do You LOVE ’em or HATE ’em

I LOVE paper books!  I do. I love the feel of the paper, I love that I can see how much is coming up on a page, and that I can flip ahead to see how much is left to a chapter–and, you know–make a decision for the next 10 minutes from there.  MOST of all, I love that I can continuously interact with the books right then and there, and THEN I can easily go back to it to remind myself of either what I learned or what moved me. I love paper books and I read them all the time.  In fact, I kind of prefer them.

Here’s an example of me interacting with a self-help book.  

And this is what I look like in non-fiction in Palabra Amiga: Domina el idioma, by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy. (As far as I can tell this is NOT available on Amazon…but only at Velazquez Press.)

And here I am relaxing in fiction with the glorious John Steinbeck, To a God Unknown. I can’t help myself.  Yes, I know that chapter 10 was the most moving while here I am marking the absolute BEST sentence in the whole book which is: “The trail left the river again, and as Joseph neared his tent the clouds rolled backward from the west to the east like a curtain of grey wool and the late sun sparkled on the washed land, glittered on the grass blades and shot sparks into the drops that lay in the hearts of wildflowers.”

You know what else I love? Reading.  Just plain reading. And technology. And I think it’s just fantastic that technology has met READING.  

So, I’m not here to say “tech only.”  I’m here to say that it has its place. Here are some of them. Do you sleep with someone by your side?   On those sleepless nights you (or they) can stay up late reading without disturbing each other by having the light on.

Or THIS!  My latest accomplishment…

I don’t have a ‘she-shack’ but I have created a sacred, peaceful place right outside my master bathroom. And I call it my “secret lair.”  (Do you know how many things three teenage boys took care of all on their own when they couldn’t find ME to take of things in the two minutes they spent looking for me and didn’t find me?)

They are all grown and gone now but I still have my secret lair.  And last week it was 102 degrees all day, three days in a row. So when it got dark and cool and I wanted to sit in my secret lair and read, for an instant, I thought “aw, shucks, now it’s cool enough but it’s too dark outside to read…but wait! The kindle!” 

BLISS.

Currently on my kindle I’m reading Serpent Box by a hometown guy Vincent Louis Carrella (And I LOVE it!)  Don’t get me started, but the way he weaves words in the MOST unique way is just amazing.  The story blends old time religion, snake oil, the Appalachian backwoods and story. What a story!  Just very, very unique all the way ‘round. I was in a hurry to read it when I found Vincent one fine day so I did purchase it from Amazon kindle.  I am highlighting my favorite sections-no it’s not the same as paper-but I am LOVING it. I DO get to keep it, and so I will be able to go back and share with Vincent some of the parts that I found most poignant.

I have a one hour commute-each way-to work.  Wouldn’t you know the kindle plays audio books as well.  I have subscribed to Audible.com before and have purchased some good books from there.  However I generally download books via the OVERDRIVE app.   There are few books that I read more than once and audible.com books can get expensive. One is bound to purchasing a $15 book every month. For me, that can add up quickly. FREE books from the PUBLIC LIBRARY! Who doesn’t love THAT!! No, I don’t get to keep them, but generally I’m totally OK with that. 

The most fantastic thing I did on Kindle last year was to go through the entire quadrilogy of Neoplitan Novels by Elena Ferrante. My sister and father turned me on to her.  If you love stories about the human condition and relationships and how people work things out…this four book story is for YOU. Ok, this is supposed to be about the Kindle, let me stick to my topic.   The reason I brought it up is that I “did” these four books in all THREE formats. Paper, e-reader AND audio! I couldn’t get enough of it fast enough! At one point I was listening to the audiobook on the way home and later that night picked up the paper book right on the chapter that I had left off on during my commute home. 

Oh, and it’s NOT just for grown-ups.  Audio books come along on every road trip I take with my son.  I WANT him to look out the window still! He can’t do that if he’s playing a video game, watching a movie or reading a paper book.  So, audio book it is. I have really enjoyed the books that he has picked out in the genres that he likes. It broadens my horizons and we are even MORE together and gives us something literary to talk about.  We’ve listened to The BFG by Roald Dahl and several books in the series Spirit Animals by various authors. And something new he’s reading called Watermelon.

So there you have it, my review and reason for getting a Kindle…if you LOVE reading. The Kindle doesn’t do much except books. It CAN do other things but they are so slow and difficult to find. I did find the camera on mine once and the pictures are so low resolution it wasn’t even worth it. If it’s more of a tablet that you need then look at the Kindle Fires. I can’t imagine reading eBooks on my laptop and I broke my iPad a little over a year ago. So I purchased a Kindle because it was much cheaper. Charles just bought a Kindle Fire 7 with his birthday money on that Amazon Prime Sale last week for $29! The iPad and Kindle Fires act more like tablets–mini computers. So you might want to go that route and kill two bird with one stone. All the price differences come in when you increase the memory (or gigabytes.)

What about you, are you reluctant to try literature in a technological format?  Do you use a kindle already? Do you use a different eReader? Tell me what you think of it.

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