"The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the confession of despair."
- J.B. Lightfoot
Saturday, July 2, 2011
I posted this a few years ago as yet another testament to my own cluelessness.
In my defense, I have a growing conviction that our lives in the West, in general, are too cluttered and clogged with gadgetry, entertainment, and the like. I'm trying very hard to simplify. So buying yet another gadget is generally anathema to me.
But a month or two ago, I bought a Kindle.
Oh my, this thing is great. I'm not saying it works great (if "great" is defined as feature-rich). It doesn't have a lot of flash or dazzle, and it doesn't even have a backlight. It just is great. I use mine as simply as possible, rarely expose it to the internet, don't use it as an mp3 player, etc. I just read on it. And for that, it's awesome.
Though it's an electronic device, it's been a vehicle of simplification for me, oddly enough. All the books I want in one nice, tight, light little package. And a battery life that has to be experienced to be believed.
And the books! Being naturally cheap, I've been reading primarily free ones. Classics. This device has opened up a new world to me. Russian short stories, Father Brown, Jane Eyre, Sherlock Holmes, Moby Dick, Dostoevsky, Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Spurgeon. I downloaded the ESV Bible on it for free. I read more now than I have in decades, because it is so simple to just pick that thing up and start reading.
I am holding out on the iPad, iPhone, and even the Droid (had one for awhile. Gave it to my better half - she loves it).This is ironic, because I am a technologist. My peers at work are starting to talk . . .
But I do love my Kindle.
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Comments on "Bearing a Gift Beyond Price, Almost Free":
4. jez
- 07/05/2011 4:49 am CDT
Hey, I just got one too! I read on it last night for the first time, it is awesome. By which I mean almost as good as a book, but with a few obvious and significant advantages. My comment to your first "kindle" article stands up I think: "Books are still much, much better of course. But on the other hand, vinyl records and open reel tape are better than CDs and MP3, yet here we all are."
5. Lars Walker
- 07/05/2011 9:00 am CDT
I got my Kindle as a gift, and experienced an immediate conversion. Right now I'm reading a paper book from the library, and find myself a little irritated by the fuss of it.
7. Bill
- 07/05/2011 9:36 pm CDT
Ah, books. They take up three dimensional space, I lose them, I can't resize the font, I lose my place.
Richard, books are too real. :-)
8. G. Frederick
- 07/06/2011 9:20 am CDT
I received my Kindle as an award at work and I absolutely love it. I am reading things I doubt I would have ever picked up before (Les Miserables right now) and the thing that has been so useful for me especially while reading this particular book is the instant access to a dictionary. There are so many words in this book with which I was not familiar that I had to check the definition frequently to get the most out of my reading. I wouldn't have done this with a real book, I would have just accepted that I didn't know what the word meant and skip right on past without actually learning anything. And it doesn't need a backlight anymore than a real book does.
9. Bill
- 07/06/2011 1:25 pm CDT
G.,
Good point on the dictionary. I reference that a lot myself, especially when reading an older classic.
Leave a Comment:
You know I'm a fan, brother. In fact I was just reading Great Expectations on my Kindle about 15 minutes ago. Love that thing. I'm out of town now, and I used to always bring a bag full of books when I go out of town. Now I just bring my Kindle.
A geek friend of mine at work told me something like this once, "This gal I know has an iPad and the largest Kindle money can buy. She said she prefers the iPad, hands down. It's all about the backlight."
I told him that that gal has a misguided understanding of what a Kindle actually is. The fact that there's not a backlight makes it superior to any other tablet or pc, at least for what it was designed to do -- be a book reader.
At any rate, I don't think it's fair to compare the two. An iPad is a tablet PC, designed to do a million things. A Kindle is a book reader, designed to do one thing, and do it perfectly.