Friday, December 23, 2011

Paper or Plastic?

Due to the kid's work schedules, we had our family Christmas celebration yesterday. It was so much fun watching the "baby grands" unwrap their stuff. Little R.J. finally got the tissue out of his one gift bag and discovered that there was a "sock" monkey in there. He pulled it out then put it back in the bag...several times. The "Divine Miss K" helped us all unwrap our gifts, plus spent many minutes hugging her new 40" teddy bear. I unwrapped my new Kindle.
After dinner and peace and quiet finally descended once more, I began the journey into e-books. There was a lot to do before I can begin downloading books, but I persevered, and got my Amazon account set up, and logged on to the Kindle, and then started perusing the many thousands of books available.
While I was sitting there in my chair learning away, Prof was sitting on the couch studying the new Nook she got last week. She had to set up an account with Barnes and Noble for hers. And so on.
I sampled a couple of books just to see what my Kindle would do. She did the same on the Nook. After a while she said that she wasn't sure she was going to keep the Nook. She is a complete bibliophile and loves books. She said that she felt like some sort of traitor to her many books, and that plastic could not take the place of paper in this instance. I laughed, but understood. She, who when she moved back from Montana, had a U-Haul trailer containing, along with her other stuff, 48 boxes of books! She loves books! So, the jury is still out on whether or not she is returning the Nook. I, on the other hand, love the small hand-held Kindle. I can store books on it so I don't have to have loaded book shelves in my house that collect a lot of dust. A Kindle is lighter to hold in my arthritic hands, and I don't have to keep track of a bookmark. Today, I am going to our local library and signing up for "Overdrive." That is an online service provided by libraries now that lets you borrow books for up to two weeks on your "e-reader" free of charge as long as you have a valid library card from your local library. There are lots and lots of free titles available and the list is growing daily.
So, as for me, I will choose plastic (or whatever the Kindle is made from) while Prof could very well choose paper!

Peace,
JE

4 comments:

Terry said...

Denise and daughter Wendy are book lovers too. I don't have time to read as much as I would like.
Merry Christmas, JE.
Terry

Curley said...

Tell your daughter even the librarian has a Kindle. Like you said, so much easier to carry. Doesn't mean that daughter can't still do paper and plastic. Just depends where she is when she wants to read. Not to mention some of those books can be darn heavy.

Jimmie Earl said...

Terry, Merry Christmas to you and yours, too.

Curley: She knows all that, but I think she is just "techno impaired" and frustrated that she can't figure it all out immediately. I have already downloaded a bunch of books from our library, and intend to do more while I am in TX. As long as I can access my library on a wireless network (which my bro just got) I can go to my own library and download what ever is available. Prof will get it all figured out. She even got a "Pink" Nook cover from Daddy-o to go with hers.

Bev Sykes said...

I'm with you. I love my kindle. I still love real BOOKS, but for the reasons you list...as well as for my husband not knowing how many books I've purchased!...the Kindle is fast becoming my favorite way to read a book.

(P.S. it would take WAY more than 48 boxes if we moved our books anywhere)