The Kindle – why it is a good investment for you and your kids – and strangely will save you time and money in the long run.
I may run a website but I don’t consider myself at all techie. Actually techy-ness is almost my nemesis. So when it was suggested I might like to invest in a Kindle.
Depressed because I really like books and love libraries. I like the fun of choosing a book to read. I love the look and the smell of books, whether it is the musty smell of an old book or the inky smell of a new book. Reading a book from a printed page could not possibly be the same as reading from electronic screen.
And suddenly I was being urged to blow my book budget for at least the best part of a few months on a Kindle. To be honest I was a little resentful of this new technology. However, although I have not turned my back on the physical book completely, I now really get why a Kindle is such a great product.
So let me tell you why I like it.
Let’s start with the bits that worried me the most. I was dead against reading from a screen, and yes the Kindle screen may have no soul, but it is very easy on the eye as you can determine the size of the font. I have my font set quite high, which makes wordy books easier to digest. (Great for kids or people like me with flighty dispositions).
As someone whose life is full of interruptions, with the printed book it always takes a couple of minutes for me to find the last paragraph I was reading, even if I use a book mark or turn the corner of the page over.
If you leave your Kindle alone for a few minutes it switches itself off. When you switch the Kindle back on it returns you to exactly the same place you left off. This saves me time and the frustration of finding the page I was reading. Best of all the unexpected bi product of this is I am reading a lot more and a lot more often in short spurts.
The screen has been designed so that you can read outside without any glare or reflection even on the sunniest day.
It is light – which makes it ideal to pop into your handbag and take it with you wherever you go. Also the Kindle is more comfortable to hold than the average book as you can hold it with one hand.
And actually the Kindle is like a magic treasure box of your own personal favourite reads. As well as loads of books by well known and the not so well known authors, you can subscribe to magazines, newspapers and blogs.
Many of the classics are free. I am currently reading Jane Eyre for free, but everything from War and Peace to Jungle Book and Treasure Island are free online with Kindle. So suddenly you feel that although you have made a capital investment with the Kindle, actually you are now creating a library of all those books you fancied buying, but were not quite sure whether they worth the investment. And where on earth were you going to put all these books anyway.
And if you are buying an E book then there is every genre you can think of including children’s books. Great for keeping little ones occupied when you are out and about. And not just by reading with them as with the Kindle as you can listen to books too.
I suspect it will not be too long before schools start investing in Kindles, if they have not already started to. If you are studying a particular book at A Level for example, there is the ability to book mark and highlight pages. You can also make notes which you can then download or email to your PC – although be warned the keyboard and text editor are merely adequate and no substitute for a proper word processing package.
And finally of course the Kindle is very environmentally friendly. No paper, no need to recycle and you no longer have the problem of what to do with all those books you have read and are now languishing in your book case gathering dust with not a reader in sight.
Don’t get me wrong I still love physical books, but for most part the Kindle is great for my transient reads, which once I have read once, I have done with them. Now my purchase of the traditional book, will be as special presents, or because I have an emotional attachment with the book, which requires it to have some sort of material presence. I would strongly recommend the Kindle as a present for anyone who reads or you want to encourage to read more.
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