I have two addictions - reading and shopping/gadgets. Shopping/gadgets get combined as one addiction because mostly what I shop for is electronic gadgets.Reading has been my primary addiction since the summer after my 2nd grade year when I read my first novel, Leon Uris' "Exodus". It also requires shopping, so all is well in my world...
The problem with this addiction is I have WAY too many books. And I move...a lot. Now, Steven is a book addict as well, but he trades or gets rid of his books. I. Can't. Do. That...
When you have as many books as I do - you go a few months or years without reading them, get bored, and go back and read them again - it's like you have new book. I don't remember all of their plots...
Anyway. Books + Moving = bad. Bad, as in, we have a weight allowance and books are heavy and put us over that allowance. Also, space is ALWAYS a problem - never enough room for the bookshelves we need.
Last year, the brilliant people at Amazon. com developed a new type of media along the lines of an eBook. Only better. Slim, portable, wireless...By itself it holds over 200 titles. With the additional memory card - it can hold almost 2,000! Anything Amazon has in it's stock - you can get downloaded to the Kindle - books, magazines, newspapers.... and nothing over $10. Not one single, new -release best seller....
I HAD to have it! So, this summer, it went on sale and I bought it. Before it ever even arrived, I had bought 32 books and had them waiting in my account. The downside was that Amazon won't ship here and so I had to have it shipped to Mom...who held it hostage for almost a month...but that ended up being a good thing. I was able to have her open it , charge it, and just in the time it took her to flick the wireless switch - all of my books had downloaded!
The design is so comfortable. I like to lie in bed when I read at home, and since I hurt my shoulder - I can't ever get comfortable. The Kindle took care of that. And I can take it with me EVERYWHERE! It fits in my purse, but usually, I just hand carry it.
Now, obviously the wireless- instant- download function doesn't work over here in Europe. It's no problem, though. I just connect the USB port to my laptop, go to Amazon, and within seconds of logging on to my account - it downloads directly to the Kindle.
Right now, I have about 75 novels on it. I have read about 12 of them in the past 3 weeks and I have 3 of them that I have partially read...
This makes me happy. Very, very happy. I had been frustrated here in Germany because my local AAFES Bookmark doesn't get much stock and I had already bought or previously read everything they had. I HAD also placed an order from Books A Million, but it got lost in shipping for a month and then took over 6 WEEKS to get here.
Nope. The Amazon Kindle is just what I needed - affordable, instant book shopping - and a gadget 'toy'.
Life is good.
No comments:
Post a Comment