For the Love of Kindle

A very kind and generous person (whom I shall not mention by name purely because I refuse to share her) gave me a Kindle Fire as a gift recently.

We are by no means a technologically challenged household, but there is not a tablet in sight at Casa Roux, purely because we have some other pressing financial commitments (bond, food, clothes, childcare) and we just haven’t been able to pinch off the money.  So you can only imagine how completely beside myself I was when I received this gift!

What I didn’t realize was how it would change my life.

For starters I no longer have to hold a book on cold nights.  I simply stand the kindle on its side against Etienne’s arm (he lies reading on his stomach) and only a finger has venture out from under the cover to flip the page.

It’s small and light and I can take it with me wherever I go, so I’m never bored.  Fair enough, it is vying for space in my large bag with my phone and crochet bag, but hey.

I feel a lot better about killing trees.  Yes, I know that I’m reading on an electronic device and someone somewhere will be able to prove that it’s actually worse for the environment, but still.

I have consumed shlurped up read more in the last few months than I have in years.  I have read cookbooks and sci-fi and vampire books and those dreaded 50 shades of whatever and Nora Roberts and Michael Robotham’s Suspect and most recently John Greene’s The Fault in our Stars. (Spoiler alert: it should come with a box of tissues or a roll of toilet paper, what an awesome book!)

It’s generally speaking a lot cheaper than buying hardcover books.

I do however find some things harder now that I’m reading on a kindle.

I find it harder to memorise book and author names if it’s not someone I’ve read before.

I miss being able to quickly refer to something on the back of the book about the promised storyline.  The outside of a book is a little like getting to know a new person.  You flirt with and remember the cover and the picture and if you come across the book at a later stage your memory is easily jogged.

I miss giving someone a book to read that doesn’t have a kindle (such as my Dad).  I can’t just be sitting at a dinner party chatting about a book and walk to the bookshelf and pull it off and hand it over.  (this might actually be a good thing, it might force people to buy the book online for less?)

I worry about the future of writers and how being a writer will be redefined in many ways.  How will you be noticed in the throng of on-line voices?

I worry about our neighborhood bookshops.  Not too much, remember the trees, but people that love books work there.  Where would those people go?

I wonder about how it will change bookclubs.  There’s something ritualistic about dragging a box of books with you to book club once a month and scratching around, looking for something that catches your eye.  How will it work in future?  Will women huddle around their kindles/iPads in their own lounges in future? Isn’t that a bit lonely?

Will we still have book clubs, or will it all be an online affair?  I despair for all the wine that won’t be drunk.  (not that I’ve belonged to a book club in a while as things are just too hectic, but plenty of my friends do)

How do you read books?  If you read on a device, how did it change your relationship with books?  Should we still be calling them books?

12 thoughts on “For the Love of Kindle”

  1. I wonder if there will ever be no books…….was at Exclusive books the other day and it was really busy.Think there are plenty of die hard book fans to keep books alive.
    I still like to read a book rather than use my ‘tablet’.

    1. I don’t think books will fall away completely, but our relationship with them will definitely change and our kids will view them in a completely different way to us.
      The thing with a “tablet” is that they are quite bulky, the kindle is less than half the size, so very easy to hold in bed 🙂 (or lean against someone)

  2. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE my Fire and call her Rose. She and I are joined at the hip and I take her EVERYWHERE with me.

    I was never a tablet person and I always swore that I would stick to paper books until I die. Then one day I literally got sick of all the books in my space. That’s when I decided that I need a tablet. It’s the minimalism that appeals to me more than anything else. I don’t believe that paper books will ever die out! There are some books that one simply MUST have in paper format and then there are books that are Kindle books. Goodness me, we live in Africa. Can you see those people in Sudan or Somalia with Kindles? Also, I will ALWAYS buy them as gifts (for people who have kindle AND for those who don’t) and for my kids. Also, I am getting rid of the books on my shelf as I read them so I am usually reading a Kindle book (this is for at night) at the same time that I’m reading a paper book (this is for in the car while my DH is driving).
    I would say that it has changed my relationship with books. For BETTER and not for worse. Because I am reading now more than I have ever read before. And I’m even exploring other genres – something that I don’t easily do.

  3. In our household there is a tablet with books on it (monopolised by The Boyfriend) and then there is me. I have loved reading since the age of 4 and I compulsively hoard every book I have ever owned and if I enjoy a particular author I must have everything they have ever written. I have tried reading on the tablet but it’s just not the same as curling up with a book that has actual pages. Some of my books tell stories about me … the book that is all puffed up because it fell in the bath, the book with the coffee stain, the book with chocolate on the pages, the many many books that have a cat hair or two between the pages.

    I know, I know, the trees. I recycle to support my reading habit.

    1. Hey, no judgies here, we have several groanng bookshelves at home that are also growing by the day.
      I have to giggle, every time my Mom gives me a book to read it’s all puffed up either from steam or because she dropped it in the bath. It’s not a habit I seem to have acquired 🙂

  4. Kindle made it much easier to read anywhere and anytime. I carry it in my handbag, and whenever I have to wait for a meeting I just pull it out and read. During the past 6 months I’ve probably read 6 times more than the previous 6 months, as books are now cheaper, and easier to get hold of.
    I don’t have an ‘armrest’ in my bed, but totally agree, it’s much easier to page using just one finger while the rest are nice and warm.
    Oh, and I can tweet from my Kindle too!
    For me… even better than sliced bread!

    1. Honey, I think we need to find you an armrest ASAP. Although you probably wouldn’t be using it for an armrest for the first few years…

  5. Read??? Read??? I don’t know how u do it!!! Seriously read!!! 2 kids … Selling a house … Moving … Packing … Managing a demanding job … Oui … I am in awe!!!!!

    Warm regards
    Collette

    1. Haha! I only really manage to read in that haze between awake and asleep in bed at night.
      How’s your packing and moving going?

  6. I love my Kindle too!!! But I still buy “normal” books. Espcially non fiction or instruction books. Like recipe books etc. I have also found that I will read the book on Kindle and if I totally loved the book I will buy the hardcopy too, just to own it.
    I read a lot more now that I have a kindle and am more tempted to read books I might normally have read because they are cheaper.

    I do miss being able to share my books though. If I have read a great book I want to pass it around or hand it to the person as I am talking about it.

    1. I hear you in the passing around, I just get sad when I can’t remember who I lend my books to. Should write it down.

Leave a Reply to Tania Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *