The Kindle.

Jim bought a Kindle last week. 

He will eventually need it, but hasn't needed it yet, so, I've taken liberty to spend hours and hours with it in the last 6 days. 

I'm resistant to a total Kindle-transition, because books are important to me. 

I like holding them, writing in them, smelling them, marking them up, loving them, dog-earing pages, then placing them on my bookshelf- each one like a trophy of sorts.  Yes- you can "virtually" do most all these things quickly and efficiently on Kindle, but, it loses something timeless I think.  I also loan books to people often.  You can't loan out Kindle books.  But don't get me wrong- all the categorizing your books and quick and zippy highlighting that stores and saves your saved passages for reference in seconds is.... nice.

Not all books are meant for/best read on a Kindle- but many are- and it is fantastic.  Books are cheap- many of the best classics are free or sell for about $1, and they're delivered instantly. 

It would have been AMAZING to have a Kindle in college- most of the books I had to buy then at outrageous prices in the bookstore (just before online buying became the norm)- many of those books are actually even free on Kindle.  Oh, how nice that would have been.

I love reading on the Kindle- Jim bought his with a leather cover- which doubles as a stand in various orientations, so I love not having to "hold" the book for hours- and the screen is perfect for reading for long periods of time- nothing flashy, just a stripped down, easy to navigate, easy-on-the-eyes screen.

Also, when you start a book- you have no way of visually "seeing" how thick/long it is (you see your progress percentage-wise, but it's not the same as holding, say, a 300-500 pg book), and when you get into the book, you read and read and read and just get lost in it, not distracted as much by how much you've "accomplished", how far you've read, etc.  I find that I quickly get lost and caught up in the books I've read on Kindle (in a good way) with less distraction- I didn't anticipate that.

♥ you Kindle.