Kindle-ing Along

So about this Kindle. (There should be a picture of it at the top of the Amazon site.) I have now purchased one book for my new Kindle and read said book on said Kindle. And it’s a funny kind of device. I seem to have read books all my life, so it’s one of those ‘how does a fish feel about water?’ questions. How do I feel about reading a book? I don’t feel anything particular about the process of reading a book: it is just reading a book. Some books better than others, and all that, but reading a book is, well, just reading a book.

So you read a book on a Kindle, and you don’t get to say that anymore. Reading a book on a Kindle is so different from reading a book in a book that I am constantly aware of the differences. The buying of the book is odd enough. I read a review of a book and decide to buy the book. If I lived where the ‘whisper net’ works (which I don’t, although I’m very close to Amazon’s home in Seattle; I don’t even have cell phone service, so the Whisper Net is unlikely to have made it to Point Roberts and it didn’t work up in B.C. either), I would turn my Kindle on via the tiny button on the back and go to the Amazon Kindle store and request my book via the tiny keypad and they would transmit the book to my Kindle in seconds.

Since I wasn’t near the whisper net, I had to go to my computer, go to Amazon, order the book, and have it download the book onto my computer, from whence I then downloaded it to the Kindle. It took about 1 minute for the entire transaction once I got to the book on the Amazon site. Normally, I want a book, I order it up from the main library in Bellingham and they get it to me 4-11 days later, assuming it’s not a brand new book (brand new books can take months, depending upon demand). My brand new—definitely a new book--Kindle choice ($10 for the Kindle, $32 for a book) was in my hands, so to speak, almost instantly.

Now this is good, but it’s only technology. I don’t need to have a book in my hand the instant I decide I want to read it. Nobody does who is reading for pleasure. But it’s kind of fun to have it happen that way. I’m not sure I’d pay $10 for the fun involved, however. But it is a new device for me and I need to learn how it works so the $10 was an education fee, not an instant-book-purchase-need fee.

Now, I have the book inside the Kindle somewhere. I turn the K on and I get the table of contents and there is my book’s title. I get the book up, and there is the cover of the book, just like the book itself, but my book cover is in shades of black and grey and I would guess that the actual cover is in color. But, there is no picture on the cover, not much to look at, so it’s okay that it’s grey and black tones. But it's also possible that the real book has a different cover with gorgeous art, etc., etc., and I am missing all that as well as the color. So if you really care about cover art, this may not work so well. But I think cover art is to help you to buy the book in a bookstore and, since you've already bought the book, it doesn't matter so much anyway.

I push a tab and the next page appears; I push a button and the text gets bigger, which makes the text much easier for me to read on the 3.5”x4.75” screen. Now, I’m ready to read. And do I read: more, next post.