Have to Pass on the Kindle



I promise that I tried it, and I just can’t do it. My boss at work just bought the new Kindle Fire, and it is so cool. Now he is selling his Kindle for an unbelievably great price. He let me take it home and try it last night. It’s so very cool. Don’t worry, I think it’s cool and I get it – it’s fun to be able to order books and have them right there, instantly for you to read. I get all the pluses. I just can’t do it.

I love books. And not just because I love to read. I love how the pages feel. I love holding something that someone else has held and written in and highlighted and folded. I love bending back the paperback covers and how it feels to write notes with a gel pen on old paper.

I also think the price is supposed to be a plus for Kindle books. I don’t usually pay more than 5 bucks for used books on Amazon, and from everything I have seen, the Kindle books average about 10 bucks. So you aren’t going to be able to cater to my frugal (cheap) side with that one.

And yes, I love the way they smell!

In case you can’t read that unbelievably small print, it says “lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us.” Perfume: The Guide

So I tried it. Really, I did. And I just don’t want to do it at this time. Maybe someday they will invent a Kindle that feels like paper and lets you write with a stylus that feels like a gel pen. And maybe you will be able to see the two pages at a time and it will flip open like a book. And maybe they will even sell them in “old used bookstore” scent. Until then, I think I have to pass.