I’ve owned a Kindle for just short of two months now and it has quickly become my favourite device. I take it everywhere! Even if I just know I’ll be waiting in line for a few minutes I bring it along. I used to think I read a lot but thanks to Kindle my reading has sky-rocketed. I probably read two or three books a month before but since buying my Kindle I have read 14 books - almost two books per week!
I’m the kind of person who rarely bought books. I would always try to get them from the library. I just don’t like owning a lot of physical stuff which was a big deterrent to buying books. Because what do you do with books? If a book was really good that I might read again I would buy it and keep it. Other than reference books, these books are extremely rare. There’s just not that many books I want to read more than once and even if I did, it would probably be a number of years until the next time anyway. If I didn’t want to keep it I could sell it to a used bookstore for maybe 50 cents, donate it to the library or just have it sit in the back of my closet somewhere.
Kindle and e-readers solve all this. It’s a no-brainer why Amazon prices it cheaper than other e-reading devices. If the Kindle is a loss-leader they definitely make the money back on the books ordered.
I had been thinking of getting a Kindle for a while now but what pushed me over the edge was my move to Japan earlier this year. Living in a small city in Japan, I was lucky to live near a library that had a surprisingly large selection of English books. I didn’t want to limit my reading to just whatever they happened to have on hand. I decided to take the plunge and this device has resulted in an immense improvement in my life.
I love reading on it and because of that I read more and learn more. In fact, a few times I have even forgotten I wasn’t reading an actual book and tried to turn the page from the top-right corner.
The only disadvantage to a Kindle I can see is that they currently do not support borrowing e-books from libraries (although they have stated they are planning to add support by the end of 2011). My library in Canada does not offer a large e-book selection yet so this is not such a big downside at the moment. The Kindle is also a device that obviously is heavily geared towards buying books from Amazon so if you want a device for borrowing from the library or don’t plan on buying many books, it may not be the device for you.
For me, I greatly enjoy reading and spending $50 a month on books that educate me and provide entertainment is money well spent. Now that I have a Kindle, this is definitely one of those things I couldn’t go back to living without.