Kindle

My in-laws just gave me my Christmas present. A Kindle.

We have had this discussion - "Do you want a Kindle?" "No, I don't want a Kindle," - many times. My mother-in-law travels a great deal, and loves her Kindle. I am a very tactile reader, and in fact developed a habit of flipping the edges of pages back and forth when a very small child - it was actually an attempt to make myself read more slowly, so that I would finish the assigned chapter only fifteen minutes before everyone else in the class, instead of twenty. (What? This blog is predicated on the fact that I read like a house on fire, so I'm not going to be modest about that.) The need to slow down is long gone, but the habit of flicking the pages remains, as anyone who has ever watched me read can attest.

So I thought, I could never use an e-reader. I need to be holding a book.

Then the package arrived, and the card stated what it was, so I opened it up; and had the most stereotypical female reaction in the history of the world. I honest-to-God squealed, "It's so CUTE!"

I'm not proud of that, but it's what I did. And let's face it, the thing is wicked cute. Which is actually, I think, going to be a problem given the aforementioned speed at which I read: the screen only holds about half a standard page of text at once, so I'm going to be switching screens really fast, and that may tire the eyes out.

So naturally the first thing I download onto it (well, after the complete works of Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, but those are givens) is Les Misérables. Because the only way to test this thing is to read 1000 pages on it, right? Actually, with this screen it's probably 2500 pages.

This will be some good times. I will keep you posted.

Oh! I forgot to mention that I can get library books on it. That is exciting.