My Kindle: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Digital Reader.

My brother got me this for my birthday:

He's pretty cool right?

Truth be told I was the last of my immediate family to join the digital reader craze. Their readers look more like this:

I had resisted getting a digital reader for so long. I was worried that it might take away some of the fun of reading. (That's right I'm one of those nerds who reads for fun.) I was very happy to find that the Kindle may even (gasp) add to the fun of reading.

First, the physical. The Kindle is pretty small, only slightly larger than a small paperback book, and about as heavy as one.

The thing that convinced me that it might be equal to the task of replacing my paper books, was the screen. It shocked me how much the screen looks like a printed page. There is no glare. No harsh light. It doesn't feel at all like you are reading from a digital screen. (Considering the number of hours I log in front of a computer screen every day, I'm very sensitive to this fact.) Just beautiful, crisp, adjustable size, text.

Secondly, the interactive element of book use. There are features that allow you to highlight, bookmark and make annotations. One unexpected, but kind of cool, feature is that I can see passages that other Kindle users have highlighted. Perhaps the only thing better than good writing is seeing other people appreciate good writing.

My favorite feature may be the fact that I can lie on my side as I read and never have the upper pages cast a shadow on the page I'm trying to read. Does that make sense? Though I still am getting used to pressing a button instead of turning a page, I think this whole Kindle thing is pretty darn cool.

Thanks Channing. You may have created a monster.

~Claire Out.