Let me take a moment out from gardening talk to allow me to profess my love for my Amazon Kindle.
When I'm not gardening, you can most likely find me reading - either on my window seat in my office, floating on the pool, or out on the boat. But wherever I am, I always have my Kindle. Yes, even in the pool and out on the lake. I figure that the sheer bliss of reading in such beautiful places warrants the cost of another Kindle, if the unthinkable were to happen.
I am a book lover - I love everything about a book:
the paper, the cover art, the fonts, hard-back, soft-back, the binding - everything. But for me, what I am reading most often is what I call "disposable fiction". That is to say, I read it once and pass it on to someone else to enjoy. Some fiction is good enough to read a second time, but most of the stuff I read is just that pass-it-along variety.
I still buy books - mostly reference books, though. Gardening books, cookbooks, software development, etc. (If I had bought the Kindle DX, though...maybe not. Although, it's still not in color!)
So I am a Kindle Lover. I bought the first version - loved it. Then the second version came out - yes, I pre-ordered it - and loved it. I actually have the first version still...maybe I ought to sell it. The benefit, for me, is that you can freely try out a book, the first few chapters, to see if it's worth your time. No more buying a huge stack of books to take home and try out, then return. The other thing is the quickness with which you can be reading a new book. I remember when I first received my Kindle I was browsing the Kindle store looking for books to read, when I was sucked in by some interesting cover art. When i clicked into the book, I found that it was this vampire book that had already sucked me in by its cover art 4 or 5 times on Amazon, but not being "into" vampire fiction, I promptly navigated away from the page. Well, here I was with my brand new Kindle when I remembered: FREE SAMPLES! This book has sucked you in so many times - just read the effin sample and be done with it!
That Saturday morning, on my window seat, I downloaded the free sample of Twilight. I read those first chapters very quickly and was completely sucked in to Bella & Edward's story. I got to the end of the free sample and clicked that "Buy Now" button with the speed of light. I had the book in my hands, so to speak, in seconds and was happily reading for hours. And when I finished it? Yep. Bought the next one immediately. And it was 10 or 11 at night! I didn't have to run to the bookstore to pick it up, or wait for Amazon to ship me (even though I'm an Amazon Prime customer with free 2-day shipping) the book - nope, I had it right there in my hands.
I wouldn't recommend the Kindle to anyone with an addiction to escapism by reading, though. It'd be a little hard to moderate that addiction, with the availability of reading material, and the mobility of the kindle.
Now a few words about the Nook. Barnes & Noble came out with their competing product, the Nook. The color touch screen almost won me over, but i'm a fan of Amazon, the company, and not so much a fan of Barnes & Noble...don't know why, I just am not. But as my SO (significant other) told me, "the color touch screen is just eye-candy. Does it actually fulfill a need?" Well...kinda...like I told you, I like the cover art...but no, not really. And besides, it takes away a little of the viewing screen for the book, I think. I also read this guy's review: http://www.productiveflourishing.com/the- kindle-is-still-the-way-to-go/ ...and my position in the Kindle camp was solidified.
UPDATE: For Christmas this year CK gave me the third generation Kindle (yes, now I have three kindles) and I can't believe how much they have improved upon a good thing. Cleaner lines, crisper text, way lighter, and the feel of the plastic is nice. The plastic is nice and grippy, which is a great change from the stainless or aluminum back that the second one has, because it will stay put when you have it on your lap or something slanted. I kind of thought CK was a little loco for getting me ANOTHER kindle for a gift, but it is a HUGE improvement over the second one.
Here are the links for the third generation Kindles. If you buy yours from one of these links, then I get a little kick-back from Amazon, just because they love me. :)
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