So, over the years, I have been stacking up books by the
gross till such time that I have run out of space for my books. When a friend
providently gifted me a Sony e-book reader a couple of years ago, it seemed
like a marriage made in heaven. Not! Though there are plenty of free e-books available
which could be loaded onto the Sony e-reader, I somehow did not take to it. For
one, it was an earlier generation reader, so though it had a touch screen it
was resistive and not capacitive. The actual page on the e-reader was pretty
ok, however it had two fundamental flaws, one was battery life, which meant
that I needed to plug it into a laptop every so often (using an external
charger seemed to take much longer, though I don’t have any data to support it)
and the second was inability to seamlessly shop online (no Wi-Fi).
This year I got my hands on the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite and
my reading experience has now completely changed. Firstly, the backlight does
make a difference, however the best feature is the ability to connect
seamlessly and send books to my Kindle from the Amazon store (now available in
India for payment in Indian rupees – not a small benefit!). Secondly it has a
neat feature of allowing you to email free e-books to a specific email id which
is tied to my Kindle. No more messing around connecting it to my laptop. Last
but not the least is the battery life. It is amazing and its now been over a
week and I haven’t had to recharge it. One thing I haven’t done is to get a 3G
enabled device, I can’t quite imagine myself in so desperate a position that I *have
to* buy a book when I am at the airport or wherever. If I can’t rely on my
e-library to re-read something then it is a sad commentary on my reading habits
and taste.
I am now a full fledged convert and would recommend it
highly to anyone who likes reading and doesn’t want to go through the hassle of
buying physical books. I would additionally highly recommend buying a cover for
it, which has the dual advantage of being a screen protector and gives a close
to physical experience of reading.
6 comments:
Good viewpoint... Similar to you even I thought eBooks cannnot replace the physical ones... But after reading this, feels like I should give it a try myself...
Thanks for sharing
Same as Uday. But despite having full day to myself being a retired person my reading has declined substantially in last few months (and this with only 4 hours of sleep at night being sufficient for me). That is partly because I am writing far more than I am reading these days and one's speed of writing (not typing) is probably much less than that of reading.
All the same your blog/s are immnently readable and I should pick up a few style tips from them.
One more problem. Don't know the count of books (let us say just fiction) the world has (let us restrict ourselves to English). Millions? Let us narrow it down to English fiction books published each year. Still thousands? How many among them that will appeal to one's taste, hundreds? Even the fastest and avid reader among us ccannot possibly read more than 200 in a year. So, we miss out far more than what we read (I guess same with food and many things we consume in life).
Why do we read? Because we have time at hand and it is the best form of time pass? Because if we do not then time will eat us out? Because we love certain type of books and certain authors and never have enough of what they have written or are writing? Because we want to be up on the latest best sellers so that we can talk knowingly at real and coffee bars? Because the slower pace of reading a novel yields a much better mental enjoyment compared to watching a movie based on same novel? Could be any one of the above or a combination of few. All I can say is that blessed are those who can finish off a novel in a day (it takes me days and I am no slow reader myself) and can resume reading at any time and place (including a bumpy ride but presumably not while driving). Blessed are those who share their pleasure of reading through a review of what they have written.
Keep it up with reading and blogging birthday boy (sorry for being belated)!
I must say I like your blogs and you are a good writer !
I wasn't a reader at all when I was in India. I picked up reading since I migrated here. I own a kindle since last one and half years. Even my kids are into reading, they love it. Younger one has her own kindle too. I bought it from US Amazon site and when they were not retailing through local shops.
I got few friends and they are good readers. They keep recommending Authors. Some of the latest one, I hooked onto are Lee Child,Harlen Coben,Mary Higgins Clark,christopher reich, Steig Larsson besides my favorite John Grisham and James Patterson.Currently reading "Rules of Deception" from christopher Reich. Last,I finished was "The Racketeer" by John Grisham. I want to try some some of your recommendations too.
I spend couple of hours on trains and instead of facebooking, I prefer reading. you can get a kindle app on IPAD or Galaxy tab but the flip side is that the others apps on the tablet can distract you. So,I agree - if you are a die hard reader then just a kindle is the way to go!
@Uday (Agashe?) - yes, you have to give it a try.
@Doc - thanks for the wishes, and look forward to reading what you are writing.
@Prashant - great that you are a fellow Kindle fan.
Good one Nilesh. It was a enjoyable reading
Yes you are right. I like my Paperwhite too. Would like to know your read list.
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