My year-long romance with Kindle isn’t over yet, but I will say I’ve had my head turned a time or two in the last 12 months. The Kindle was last year’s Valentine’s Day gift from my husband, and it immediately became my new obsession. As a voracious reader, it had the potential to put a considerable dent in my book buying habit, and I loved the fact that many of the classics and some cool, new titles were absolutely free in the Kindle versions. I signed up for some industry blogs and actually paid a small, monthly amount for them to be pushed to my Kindle since I never took the time to pull them up on my computer and read them at work. I also subscribed to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal on my Kindle.
Kindling was a great new way to read everywhere, anywhere, and I was a hit at my book club and in public places. “Do you really like it?” people — even strangers — wanted to know as I cleverly tapped my way through page after page of electronically-displayed content. It was a heady few months. Sure, I missed the illustrations and photos that accompany news stories. I missed poring over images on book covers and figuring out the often-cryptic meanings behind them. I missed reading end flap material, and checking the top to see how far I had read into the book and how much was left. Also, I missed smelling the ink from printed pages, but you never want to admit that if you’re Kindling; everyone misses that.
Most of all, I missed the tactile nature of holding a book in one or both hands and that delicious feeling of diving right into a story. Kindle reading seemed to me a cleaner, tidier, more cerebral experience but it somehow made reading a less intimate experience for me. So it wasn’t long before I started prowling the libraries and the used and new bookstores again to satisfy my cravings for The Real Thing. And this act of betrayal didn’t come without a modicum of guilt since Kindle books are less expensive ($10 or less but that’s about to increase), more environmentally-friendly, and more easily accessible.
With all that said, I continue to use my Kindle, although admittedly much less than before.
I still buy printed books, too, and check armloads out at the library. I subscribe to hard copies of several local and national newspapers and magazines, rarely reading them online.
I continue to be a techno junkie, fascinated by every new gadget I come across. Right now an indispensible iPhone rocks my world with its social media at a touch, its fast internet connection, and its easy texting capability. Plus, I have heart flutters just thinking about all those irresistible apps just waiting for download.
But with that said, I find myself shamelessly flirting with the idea of buying that cunning, new iPad, an item I shouldn’t afford and don’t actually need. Given my history of blatant, technological infidelity, though, it might be time to fall in love once again with lower-tech paper Valentines and candy hearts. They’re pretty special, too.
