Gift of reading

I may be a slow reader, but I nevertheless enjoy the endeavour. Getting books, and affording them, are often a challenge in New Zealand, as any American expat will tell you. Today I took one step further toward solving those dilemmas.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and Nigel (the most wonderful husband in the world, by the way) gave me my present early: An Amazon Kindle (WiFi version). I’ve barely had a chance to do more than set it up and download all my purchases to it, but I already love it!

Last September, I wrote about the Kindle arriving in New Zealand. I think it was pretty obvious that I was smitten, and yet, I didn’t think I could “justify” it when I already had the Kindle software on my i-devices. I was wrong.

Even in the box the Kindle weighed a fraction of my iPad, and weight has always been a major issue for me with e-readers. No one device can yet do everything well, and if I was buying a content-rich multimedia publication (or even a magazine or book with lots of photos), I’d use my iPad.

But for ordinary books, especially ones that may change or that are horribly expensive in New Zealand (which is nearly every book on the New York Times bestseller list…), Kindle is the best way to go.

I’m absolutely NOT abandoning traditional books; there are some that are, in my opinion, absolutely required to be traditional ink on paper. But for the rest, there’s Kindle, one of the best birthday presents ever from the best husband ever.