As promised, here is an unbiased view of owning a Kindle from a very avid reader.
To start off, I’m not a gadget freak, I actively dislike gadgets. Unlike most of my peers, I don’t have a touchscreen phone (or even a smartphone) or a tab. I used my previous laptop for six years and would’ve happily continued had it not been deemed a dinosaur and basically un-repairable. That was precisely why I would probably never have bought myself a Kindle. I wasn’t sure. Just as well that it was a present.
Having said that, it was a lovely present for someone who reads as much as I do. Now to what I really think about it…
1. PRO There is virtually no difference between reading a book and reading the screen, the reading experience is the same. There is no glare like the computer screen and the eyes don’t get as fatigued either. That is very impressive.
2. CON Show me one Kindle that smells like a book! To me, nothing can replace the feeling of sniffing at a new or old book and inhaling the scent of stories, of characters, of long ago times. There is nothing that feels like the physical act of turning a page, slipping in a bookmark (reluctantly), of furrows on a spine. Nope, I missed that…
3. PRO It is a blessing to be able to choose font size. Oh! I remember reading my edition of Antony and Cleopatra, font size freakin’ 7. 7! I almost went blind! The first time I picked up Gone With the Wind, I put it down after 50 pages because the font size irked me. Blessing to be able to choose.
4. CON Not a lot of people read these days. To be honest, I loved the attention I got whenever I was spotted with a ‘heavy’ book. I loved how people perceived me when I read Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde or Dickens. On so many instances, people have approached me and struck up a conversation to find out why I didn’t look like a nerd if I really was reading nerdy books! On so many instances, i have asked people how they like the book they were reading ’cause I was meaning to pick up the same…
On a Kindle, you never know what a gem/what shit one is reading.
Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. –P.J. O’Rourke
5. PRO So many books I have read over the years, so many book I have wanted to re-read. Now, finally, I can re-read all the Famous Fives and kiddy books. Books that I could never carry around because they finish too quickly. Going back to them is so much easier!
Also, no more worrying what I’ll do if my book finishes!
6. CON I love being in bookstores! I usually spend at least half an hour every week just walking around, browsing, and touching books I want to read. I am going to continue doing that, but maybe the number of people doing that is going down?
7. PRO Obviously, the light is much appreciated. I love reading before I go to bed and it helps immensely that now I don’t have to get out of my cozy duvet and switch off the light!
8. CON Since I have become a student at a foreign country, I have not been able to afford books. Really, I have no idea why books cost so much in the UK! Anyway, along with that, I have also discovered the joy of finding a book in a charity shop! I wouldn’t give it up… it is an amazing feeling going into a shop and having absolutely NO idea what to find.
9. PRO As I said, I like to read before bed. Which means, reading lying down angles my poor neck and every 30 seconds or so, I have to swap the way the book is held. You get the drift if you read lying down; but, with my Kindle, voila! Magic, just stay in one horrible posture angle throughout!
10. CON When I look at one of my books, there is a certain feeling associated with it. All the books I’ve read, all. It’s like having different friends, each one has spoken different things, showed different sights… how do I have separate unique feelings anymore when all I’m looking at looks the same?
Lastly, books = paper = pulp = trees = deforestation. Maybe using a Kindle might just save some trees.
What are your opinions?
BookMark 
Oh, I love reading on my kindle. I literally spent this entire weekend in bed with a new book-series I discovered, and I could never have done that had I not been using my kindle, because I very easily get a stiff neck and headaches to follow.
I also love how easily accessible books are to me on my kindle, and they are so much cheaper than if I were to buy them at a Norwegian bookstore, where books costs twice as much as they do in the UK. Now, I don’t have to wait months (I have actually had to wait more than a month on several occasions) to get the books I desire, and I don’t have to pay twice as much just to get them shipped to me because I prefer reading books in English if that is the original language.
However, there are some books, such as The Hobbit or the Harry Potter series that I will never read on my kindle, simply because I first read them on paper. I also like to fill my bookcase with my favourite books, and let my younger cousins borrow them to share the joy. But as a student, I have very limited room, and my parents’ house is already filled to the brim with my books, so I simply do not have the room for more books at this point, and a kindle is so easy to travel with, to have all the e-books of amazon at my fingertips…
No, though some classics are best enjoyed on paper, I prefer kindle books merely because it is practical, and I like saying stuff like “darn it, my book ran out of battery”. I LOVE gadgets! I just could not feed my hunger for books by getting the paper editions; my library (though it is huge) does not have them, and I can’t afford to buy them. Still, when I’m feeling nostalgic, I’ll still pull out an old paper-book. And you know, you could always get the “Paper Passion” perfume, or CB’s “In the Library” perfume if you miss the smell of books 😉
Damn this is one looong comment… I’ll stop now before it turns into an entire post 😉
Oh thank you! Thank you for taking it personally and writing your views about it, for letting this touch you 🙂
I’ve been nodding my head at all the things you said. I do agree, and I might just look the perfumes 😛
I’m glad there are people like you out there!
Aww, you flatter me! I’ve been looking forward to hearing how you and your kindle got along. Have you named it yet? Give it a personal touch, it’ll help.
But really getting my hands on a kindle made it so much easier for me to read as much as I want to, not to mention that I no longer have to fill half of my suitcase with books while travelling, and I do love to travel… Makes room for all the books I buy while I’m out in the big world! (I always buy more books than I can fitt)
Yes that’s true. Having (and not being able) to carry books around is now solved. I have always bought more books than I can carry, or keep, or afford. Seriously!
Have been contemplating buying one for quite sometime now. Agree to almost everything written in this post. The romance of holding a book is something different but with the limited closet space in a stupid paying guest … I might just get myself one! Thanks for the post.
Yes, once you leave home you realise space and weight as important things! Get one, you’ll like it.
All book lovers will like this post. I agree with your pros and cons. Reading lying down is the best thing about a Kindle, and I love hanging out at at my local bookstore, so I must buy books to help keep them in business. Nothing like book browsing!! Thanks for the fun post! Loved the quotes.
Thank you!
All the advantages you list do hold, but somehow, on my Kindle, I never feel like I’m GETTING THROUGH the book at all, you know. The number of pages you’ve already read through a paperback, doesn’t really reflect well when represented as a lame percentage on the corner of the screen. It sort of takes away my sense of accomplishment and excitement, therefore I rarely use my Kindle
Yes that’s true. Come to think of it, it makes me a little nervous, having the ticker, as if I’m running out of time or sitting the GRE or something! Must look for a way to disable it altogether.
I have 800 physical books, 4 e-readers (an iriver, a kobo, a cocoon and a pico), and a 16gb USB stick with 10000 books on it, as long as I’m reading, it doesn’t matter if it’s a device or a physical book in my hand. All the e-readers I have state the pages on them. I read a book about the Salem witch trials on the Pico, it had 2800 pages, of course they were small pages compared to a physical book, but it was an accomplishment to get through it. It took me 3 months to read the whole thing, compared to a couple of days for any other book. Don’t get me wrong, buying books is one of my absolute greatest pleasures, especially if I’m waiting for the next book of a series.
Hi Reet,
Thanks for your thoughts and I would echo some of them. This post is over 6 years old and interestingly, I ended up re-selling my Kindle just because I ended up not using it enough. However, I now own a smartphone and have the Kindle app on it which I use to keep free books for an ’emergency’ – if I don’t have a physical book on me. I must admit, I still haul around big books with me most of the time!