Photo credit: Jon ‘ShakataGanai’ Davis
That unspeakable poltroon, Hunter Baker, has frustrated me yet again.
I was all set to deliver a jeremiad tonight. I have seen the demise of our civilization, clearly and ever more near, and I was ready to deliver the fatal diagnosis in tones of stentorian woe. I promise you, it would have wrecked your weekend, if not your whole month.
Then I get a package, and what has Hunter Baker done? He’s sent me an Amazon Kindle.
Because I’ve commented frequently that I’m not about to jump into this newfangled gimcrackery. Paper books were good enough for Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and by hunky, they’re good enough for me.
Now I have a Kindle.
I kind of like the idea.
In light of this development, I hereby delay the Apocalypse, at least until I can figure out how to hook it up to my WiFi.
I’ll keep you posted.
Update: I ought to mention that Hunter Baker is the author of The End of Secularism.
While you are quite right about Mr. Baker, I must say I have a Kindle and it is one of my favorite things on earth. The ability to carry around a bookshelf full of books in one small device is genius.
You can so easily carry your reading with you it means even more books can be taken off the TBR list. Of course, it also mean more books – the digital kind – get addded.
Keep your eyes out on Amazon and you can regularly get free books for the Kindle. And in March, NEt Galley will once again have ARCs via Kindle (www.netgalley.com).
Plus, think of it this way: you are winning the future!
You can compromise and only download free books in the public domain!
Five presents have changed the course of my life in splendid and unforeseen ways: my first 35mm camera, my first “boom” box (it played 8-track tapes AND cassettes), a Chihuahua puppy, my first computer, and my Kindle.
I resisted the Kindle for several years, but Husband gave me one for Christmas. I’ve been under treatment for cancer, which means lot of time in waiting rooms and treatment rooms, and he thought the Kindle would be a good companion for me; he was absolutely right.
On my Kindle right now: Robert Crais, James Church, Sue Grafton, all of Jane Austen, all of Sherlock Holmes, some Robert Frost, and a book about cancer and nutrition. Only yesterday I discovered that I can get Lars Walker’s books electronically. How ’bout that!
And I can get books in the blink of an eye, which is the best part since shopping is a problem for me right now, not to mention remembering what I wanted to buy when I finally get to the bookstore. (Although I accidentally bought a $64 book of poetry a few days ago. Uh Oh. But I instantly returned it.)
I won’t tell you that a Kindle is better than a real book (no smell, for one thing), but I love having such amazing choices available to me at all times, and I bet you will too.