Happiness Is … A New E-reader

I’ve had an e-reader ever since the Amazon Kindle was first released in 2007.

At that time, these amazing little gadgets weren’t offered in Canada, but I was able to get one because hubs was regularly driving to the USA and he could have mail sent to a hotel address where his company had overnight accommodations booked year round for their drivers. These originals even had a keyboard! (The iPad wasn’t released until 2010).

My next e-reader was the Kindle Fire, released in 2011. I didn’t get mine until 2013. I still had to order to hubs’ USA address. The Fire tablet was in full colour.

A few years later, I purchased a Kindle Paperwhite. Finally, I could purchase a Kindle in Canada! This e-reader felt good in hand, was close to the same size as most paperback books, and the backlit non glare screen was perfect for both bedtime and sunny outdoor reading. Unfortunately, my current reader was facing end of days and I wanted to be sure I didn’t lose any of my extensive e-library.

Yesterday, my new Paperwhite arrived. The screen dimensions are a bit bigger (approximately 1/2” overall in each of width and length). Where the frame had a ridge before, it has none now. Overall, it feels and looks great.

E-reader pros: To me, the biggest pros are space, convenience, and cleanliness. I have a huge library that takes up only a bit of real estate on my bedside table or on the little table by my armchair.

When we travel, my entire library fits into my purse.

I can have several books on the go at a time, without having a pile of them around my chair and each book is automatically bookmarked at the last page read. I can also hilight passages and look up the definitions of new-to-me words.

For many, the tactile sense is the biggest reason for “real” book preference.

That’s not an issue for me. Real books can be a pain in so many ways: torn pages and broken spines, too bright to read outside on a sunny day, the space they take up, the book mites that make me sneeze, if they accidentally get wet, they swell up or the pages glom together and they’re pretty much hooped, and the list goes on.

I guess you could say that e-readers are a good fit for my ocd-ish personality.