it’s been four months. how do i like my kindle?

Wednesday, July 19, 2017 |
I resisted getting an e-reader for a long time. At the beginning of the rise of ebooks (it sounds kind of apocalyptic written out like that, right?), I was dead broke and a grad student. My money was going towards essentials, and as much as I love them, books are not essential to human survival. Neither is toilet paper. TMI? Anyway, I didn’t have money for an e-reader and friends & family didn’t gift me one, so I didn’t have one.


Then I left grad school, moved across the country twice, and got an office job. While I was slightly less broke, I couldn't justify the purchase of a dedicated device while I had a perfectly serviceable iPhone and Kindle app. This whole time, Amazon sent me “deal of the day” emails, and I bought so many discounted ebooks that browsing my ebook library started to scare me. Also by that point people in my book club were shocked I didn't have an e-reader and maybe everyone in my life assumed I was making a deliberate choice not to own one?

Fast forward another couple of years, and I fractured my eye socket playing rec league floor hockey (...). While my face healed and my vision got back to 20/20, the muscles around my eye deteriorated *just* enough that reading on my phone late at night wasn't fun or easy anymore. So it was e-reader time! And that's how I bought a Kindle Paperwhite.

What do I think of it? Well, it’s perfectly nice. I don’t mind reading on/with it. It’s certainly easier on my eyes than a phone screen. And yet… it functions more as a security blanket than as a reading device. I take great comfort in the fact that I can stick it in my bag and have hundreds of books at my fingertips. I do not actually take it out of my bag to read that often (sighhhhh). So, that’s where we are.

I may still change my habits with time and find it really useful, but in the meantime I will continue to load my Kindle up with ebooks that I very rarely read, and take pleasure in the opportunity rather than the reality.

Do you have an e-reader? Do you use it regularly?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

My mom has a Kindle Paperwhite that she uses because she needs the backlight and text enlargement with her vision. She loves it although browsing for books is sometimes hard because it's just not as convenient to browse online as it is in a library.

I don't have one because I don't think I'd use it that much and also because I feel like it might be more of a theft risk on my commute than, you know, a print book. I don't think I'd use it much because I'm constantly struggling with the stacks of physical books that I own but I also feel like it would be a slippery slope to over-requesting/purchasing eBooks too.

That said, if there comes a time when my mom needs a Kindle upgrade I do plan to take hers for myself instead of reselling it.

Kristen M. said...

I don't have an e-reader yet, mostly because I worry that I would be like you and just not take it out very much. I would love to be able to read more review books on NetGalley rather than getting so many physical galleys and I would like to get ebooks from my library as well as the audiobooks that I already enjoy. So, I keep thinking about it and maybe one day I'll give in. ;)

Cecelia said...

Kristen M.: The library ebook thing is real. At least when I do that and borrow way too many to read it doesn't do anything except make me feel guilty! Whereas when I request e-ARCs from NetGalley that I inevitably don't get to in time I kill my rating as well as feel shame. :P

Jenny @ Reading the End said...

I have a Nook and an iPad! I mostly use the iPad to read comics or PDFs, if I'm using it to read, but the Nook I have used A TON since I first got it (as a gift). When I lived in New York it was indispensable because it was light and easy to haul around on the subway. I use it constantly for library books in particular.

Ryan said...

I have a Nook Tablet, and I'm on it constantly. I put off buying one for years, and now I can't live without it.

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