I got my first kindle a little over three years ago. It was an immediate love affair. So many books on demand with instant download capabilities. Whatever I was in the mood to read could be bought with just the push of a button. It held so many books and wasn't nearly as cumbersome as holding a 1000 page book.
Ahhh, the delight of a new gadget. I even shelled out another $50 for the cover that had the built in light.
I loved that books are always cheaper if you bought the digital version instead of the paper copy. I even joked that if I had one item to take with me to a stranded island that my kindle would be it.
But over time my love affair with my kindle started to fade.
First it was the cover that plugged into the side of the kindle broke. Probably about a year into owning it the hooks on the side that inserted into the kindle body snapped off, with one stuck inside. So I got a good book light that clipped on to any book and stuck it on. This could be annyoing because it had a habbit of either sliding off or blocking some of the words.
As time went on I started to notice a pattern of buying books that I never actually read only, thinking that I would, only because it was so easy to purchase. Most of these books I would have been much better off browsing through at the bookstore or checking out at the library.
Next came my annoyance that when I found a book that I really liked it was difficult to pass it on to anyone else when I was done with it. I know that Amazon has a kindle lending library, but unless you pay a premium membership you cannot lend it to anyone and it is simply stuck on your device. It seemed to become a one time use fee for digital content.
The last point is the one that I really began to take issue with.
I believe that a book has a lifetime to it. Once it is purchased it is meant to be read and then passed on. Shared from one owner to the next, loved by each and maybe eventually donated to the library where it can be shared by all.
Sadly the kindle prevents this.
And then two nights ago, I set my kindle down on the seat of the car climbed up next to it to retrieve something out of the car and heard a crunch. I had accidently kneeled on my kindle and broken it. The screen froze in a jumble garbled of words and that was it. I was heartbroken. My beloved e-reader was gone.
I decided right then and there that I was not going to be dragged back into the "gadget replacement purgatory hell". I would not be replacing my kindle.
And why should I? Books are free from the library. No need to buy a device and then the book only to let it never be seen again once read. If they don't have the book I want, I can buy it used and resell it when I am done. Yes there is an environmental cost to pay with gas and delivery, but so is there in all the extra hours I have to work to buy a kindle in the first place.
Technology is an amazing thing, but so are the simple things, like a paper book.
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