Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The Kindle

Amazon's Kindle was finally released to Canadian buyers yesterday.

Now truthfully, I have never bought into the 'next new thing' electronic frenzy. I still use an ordinary flip phone rather then the iPhone or Blackberry with their 50,000 applications. Yet I never fully moved into the cell phone world either. I rarely use it, resent it if it rings and have to struggle to remember my own cell phone number at times. I never text and would probably be painfully slow at it if I did.

I am not a gamer so the world of Wii and PlayStation escape me. My computer, while reasonably solid, is not state-of-the-art with a 6 trillion GB hard-drive and all the bells and whistles( ~ though I am seriously switching from a PC to a Mac.

I bought my first DVD player a solid 5 years after they first came out. I still have a few VCR tapes kicking around here but no VCR to play them on.
In the realm of electronics, I am pathetic, a true novice.

Ahhh... but the Kindle. The Kindle makes me drool. I adore my book collection, but to have a library of 1500 or more at my fingertips? All the time?? It would be an impossibility for me to lug 1500 books around in my semi-nomadic lifestyle. I try to keep my permanent hard-copy library carved down to true classics and favorite titles for 'roam-ability', the kind I will read and re-read again and drag with me everywhere. Don't even ask me how many times I read "The Stone Angel" or "The Story of Zhara", or a number of my Pierre Berton and Emily Carr titles, it's almost embarrassing. I can almost hear someone out there saying "Good God woman, get a life!"

Don't even get me started on newspapers and periodicals. I adore publications like McLeans and Newsweek and Time, the local papers.

But I was sometimes lethargic on getting my blue bins and bags of recycled newspapers to the curb and with the thick nature of the papers today with their weekend editions and dozens of flyers, it was just a matter of weeks before you started to look like you were a hoarder and needed an intervention.

While I read a variety of genres, I am a sucker for anything Canadiana and period memoirs, historical and the classics. There are so many other books I want to read, but when moves are pending, or time is scarce, the time to peruse new titles on bookstore shelves becomes scarce. I tend to find many titles through Amazon these days. They offer a handy little suggestion feature that will offer up more titles of a similar author or genre when you are reading up on a particular title.

Amazon had a picture me in mind when they were developing their site, I am sure of it.
"Listen, if this chick likes this one, well offer her three more similar ones, she will probably buy them too!!"

Yes, they have my number.
A recent television documentary led me to the book "The Floating Brothel" by Sian Rees which led me to "The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding" by Robert Hughes. Now as a result of these first 2 books, I am considering purchasing the title " In a Sunburned Country" by Bill Bryson . Good grief.

Hell, I will read anyone's history, it need not even be my own! And what could be more interesting than a country founded on convicts??

But back to the Kindle.


Yes, the Kindle is for a girl like me.
I can't help myself. My finger is twitching over the 'Add to the Shopping Cart", knowing full well that this will head me down the slippery Amazon path of "Proceed with the Order."
God help me ~ I am turning into an electronic junkie.

...Just a very select one.


Disclaimer: The preceding blog was NOT endorsed by Amazon or the Amazon Kindle. It just looks like it.

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