Confessions of an old-school reader

As someone who loves traditional books — the look and feel and weight of them — I have a confession to make: I really like using the Kindle.

I am the co-owner of a Kindle; I probably wouldn’t have bought one on my own, but my husband is a geek (though he prefers the term “early adopter”) and got one right away. It’s mostly his, and I’ve only used it a couple of times … until this week, when I brought it with me on a solo trip. And I have to admit, the Kindle makes an awesome travel companion.

Given all the airline restrictions and baggage fees, I wanted to travel as lightly as possible, which for a writer isn’t always easy (notebooks, laptop, books, etc.). But instead of carrying three or four books with me, I downloaded a few books onto the Kindle — books I’ve been wanting to read but didn’t yet own in physical form. And so I had all my reading material in one lightweight, slender place.

Well, almost all my reading material. I did bring a couple of magazines with me because Kindles are among the devices that must be put away during takeoff and landing.

Among the things I appreciate about the Kindle are: being able to enlarge type size so that I don’t have to dig through and/or haul my bag out of the overhead bin looking for my glasses, which are likely in my checked baggage anyway; being able to read one story, flip to another collection or anthology to read another, then return to the first, all without doing the aforementioned digging around; being able to look up a word at the click of a button; being able to buy a new book at the click of a button.

Spending some quality time with this e-reader made me glad that Forgetting English is available on the Kindle. Many writers would still prefer that their books be available only in traditional form — but I think this is changing. While I still believe that those who love traditional books will continue to buy them — I’d have bought the books I’m reading now in paperback if I hadn’t had a Kindle for this trip — I’m hearing of more and more readers who read exclusively on the Kindle these days. And once I saw how easy it is to download a book — within moments, it appears in your library — I was glad to know that my own book is available at the click of a button. Yes, it’s cheaper and we all make a bit less money — but given the choice, I’d rather have fewer dollars than fewer readers.