Saturday, May 19, 2012

Besties: Me and My Kindle

I just love my Kindle.  I have a few friends who have (and adore) Kindle Fires, but since I have a laptop and an iPod touch I really thought the Fire was more than I needed; all I want to use it for is reading.  My little, lightweight, basic Kindle is the greatest thing ever.  It feels great in my hand, it's so easy to use, and it's my new best friend.  I've downloaded books from Amazon and books from the library, and it's all so quick and so very easy. 

I can take off my glasses and lie down in bed to read comfortably. To be honest, I've accidentally fallen asleep cuddled up to my Kindle a time or two. Glasses suck for reading in bed if I want to lie down. Being pitifully nearsighted, if I take off my glasses to lay my head on the pillow, I then have to hold the book a couple of inches away from my face.  Which, according to my sweetie, looks really, really sad.

I've been spending more time than usual reading lately.  In the past couple of months I've read:
The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice (library) - I liked it
Abduction by Robin Cook (library) - I got sucked in and couldn't stop reading
Fifty Shades of Grey = fun, couldn't get into the sequels
Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage (Amazon ebook) - entertaining but dated
The Kid by Dan Savage (Amazon ebook) - really interesting
The Writer's Mentor by Cathleen Rountree (library) - great advice
How To Sew A Button & Other Nifty Things Your Grandmother Knew by Erin Bried (library) - cute and informative

Two websites any Kindle owner needs to know about:

Pixel of Ink - a daily listing of a half-dozen or so interesting free ebooks on Amazon (there are actually a lot of free ebooks on Amazon, but the full lists can be hard to find and hard to navigate).

Readability - downloads web text to your Kindle, converted automatically into an easily readable document.  This works with news articles, blogs, fanfiction (woot!).  I downloaded the program, put its icon on my browser toolbar, and any site I'm on I can just click my Readability button and within a couple of minutes a clean, correctly formatted text document is on my Kindle, ready to go. And it's free!  I can't recommend Readability enough.  If I weren't already married, I would propose to it.  It adds a whole different level of awesomeness and fun to my already super awesome Kindle.

I used to be resistant to the idea of ebooks, and to the possiblity of reading a book on a device instead of holding the actual paper book in my hand.  HA.  I still love my books (and I'll never be able to pass by a used bookstore without going in, and I'll never stop enjoying that old-book smell).  Now I know that there is a place for both.  Up with Kindles, down with wallowing in technophobic ruts!