I'm sold on E-readers

A few months back my friend Kathy let me borrow her Kindle so I could read Inferno by Dan Brown for our base spouses' clubs' book club. Thank goodness for her kindness, there were 60 holds on a single copy of the book, I was 90th place for any version of the English language book in the library system. Having finished the novel, she let me hold on to it and read through any other books she had. I could catch up on previous novels the club had read that I had missed.

As DH was studying for a test for the past few months and I knew I had to return the e-reader shortly, I read through as many books as I possibly could with all the extra time from not watching TV or movies. I knocked out the previous year's misses and moved on to some others that she had. I read her copy of Divergent by Veronica Roth and loved it so much that I sent her an email saying I was going to grab the next ones from the library, I just couldn't put it down, and maybe we should add that to the book club list. She had also heard good things about it and told me to wait on the books, she will get them and before I could finish reading her immediate email reply, there they were. 

I knocked them out in two days, so a day each. My sister thinks I am a speed reader. I'm not, I just don't sleep. I do, in fact, read fast, but I have known a real speed reader and that was a scary sight. And before you try to discredit her, she did read each and every word-it was out loud, that is how I know. Definitely something I am not but I aspire to be of such talents. She also had great diction, something I mastered long ago. (ha)

Back to the e-reader. It is so light, and easy to use, and holds so many books. And while I love the "free" books (to promote the writer and get the name or novel out there) not only because they are free and gets me out of my usual genres and the concepts for the plots are just amazing, it is great to have so many more at my fingertips when I find a book I just can't slog through. I mean some are just terrible. So sad to see such potential wasted. I'll post reviews later on. 

Fast forward to just last week, someone showed me how to get it to read to me! I thought that was an option for newer ones. Love it! Unfortunately, I couldn't hear it over the TV and the pots bubbling away in the kitchen. I had hoped to listen while I prepared dinner. But I bet with all the computer speakers we have, I could hook one of those babies up and crank the volume of the voice. Worth a shot, anyway.

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While I only have experience with the Kindle, this one might be the Kindle 2 (? I have no idea), I like the concept. This has the big buttons on the side and the full keyboard. I have noticed the newer ones are sleeker, so if you don't need glasses to see what your fingers are pressing or you already know what the buttons do, you are good to go. I happened to like being able to read each button title, prev page, next page, home, menu, back, and the whole keyboard. If I moved on from here, I would also probably be good to go with the practice. But when I first started out I was pressing all kinds of buttons by accident and finding myself totally lost.

DH and I have gone back and forth for years as to whether we should put up the money to by an e-reader when I pass a library (free!) on my way home from work. Why pay for books when I can get them for free? I have recently looked it up, and if it is on e-book, I can borrow from the library for about 2 weeks. Not bad, not bad at all. Although, I did just come across a few books that I wanted which were not available on e-book.

Unfortunately, our base library has been closed due to budget cuts. I need to check with our last base to see if I still have access to the world wide base system. I heard it is great but never needed to borrow from any other base. That library rocked, I miss it so.

Well, there you have it. I am sold on e-readers. It is light, portable, sleek, and if the WiFi is off, the battery actually lasts for...ev...er.  I am very impressed. A huge Thank You to Kathy for letting me get used to it and love it.