I will never be a Kindle convert.
Yes, I understand the convenience, instantly download what you want, carry it with you easily, take umpteen books on holiday without a need for a weightlifter’s belt to lift the suitcase.
But I love the physicality of books. I love their look and feel, their colour and design, the touch of the cover, the weight of the book. I love to browse the shelves of a real bookshop, flick the paper pages. I adore rummaging through the shelves of a second hand bookshop, seeking that special find, a little bit of history.
I love to curl up in an armchair with an inviting book next to me.
I like to see new books lined up on my shelves, waiting for me to choose them, to open them, to discover them for the first time.
I like to survey the rows of books I have already read, little packages of memories, waiting for me to discover them once more. Not just memories of the story they tell on their pages, but thoughts of how the pages got slightly curled, where I was when I read it for the first time, very Proustian I know!
What do you think? Are you a Kindle convert? Or a Book stalwart?
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As it happens, I am severely limited on the amount of luggage I can take on holiday this week, because the baggage holds on the light aircraft I’ll be using to get around Africa are minute. So I have had to resort to a Kindle!
I’ll report back on my views when I get home. Will I become a convert? We shall see….
Travel with Intent 
I agree with all your other readers, that there’s nothing like the look and feel of a book, but that Kindle is convenient, especially when you can get the book you want to read immediately, even if there are no book stores near you. I live in Australia, but I just did a trip to the US, where shopping malls were devoid of book stores. I checked the information map of one in Bellevue, Washington, to see that there used to be two or three book stores there, but they had been crossed out on the list (i.e. closed). We came across one second-hand book store in Long Beach in our whole trip to Hawaii, Washington and California. I know there are some great and famous book shops in the US (such as in Portland), but it really seemed a sign of the times to me that your average suburban shopping mall no longer can sustain a book store.
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There is nothing better than touching a book, feel the cover and pages between your hands and fingers, smell the paper and have them all lined up on a book case for show and tell.
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I was a book purist and was adamant that I’d never have an e-book reader, mainly because of the reasons you’ve described.
Then my husband insisted that I get a Kindle as he was fed up with my stuffing books into every spare corner of the suitcases when we went on holiday. I’d even discard shoes or clothes in order to squeeze a couple more books in.
I’ve actually got quite fond of my Kindle now. For books that I wouldn’t be keeping anyway, it’s ideal. Many of them are cheaper, even free. I’ve been able to try new authors at little cost and can take as many books on holiday with me as I want. It won’t replace my collection, but it will sit alongside it quite happily.
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I find I value both books and e-readers (iPad in my case). Books are great for memories and sharing, but I can read from my iPad in the middle of the night without the need to turn on the light and disturb my partner!
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I have never tried Kindle, but I’m sure at some point (probably when faced with luggage constraints as you were) I will give in. I don’t think I could ever give up on a lovely colourful cover sitting on my shelf, but I do understand the convenience factor.
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I will always love paper books but the Kindle is a….”necessity” at the moment, for all those reasons you mentioned, and for the reason your reader from Thailand mentioned as well. Shipping is costly and picking the books up from the Post Office Customs is a chore. There’s a place for the Kindle but it won’t replace the special spot in my heart for my paper books 🙂
Enjoy your travels!
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I love both of them; Kindle and paper books. But I’ve spent much time reading books on Kindle lately as I’d like to read English language books. It’s very convenient for me to buy them via wireless because I’m living in Thailand where I need to go to malls for English novels and sometimes I have to wait for a while before I could grab those books in my area. Another thing is that it’s very easy to carry Kindle everywhere I go especially travelling. Anyway, I still love the weight and touching of paper books as well as the beauty of covers which I still buy Thai literature in the form of paper books.
So I’m just glad that I have both of them in my life. 😀
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I have a Kindle. The main reason I had mentioned to my boyfriend as to why I wanted one was because I could buy my textbooks or find the PDFs and read them without carrying five 2000+ page books with me to school. It came in handy a lot and I could also download class outlines or worksheets and study sheets on them without losing papers and such.
I can actually say I rarely read books on them because I too enjoy having a good solid book in my hands. Even with the textbooks on my Kindle it feels kind of annoying that I can’t whip out a highlighter and circle or go over some things that I need to remember.
Another reason why I don’t read too many books on it is because they sell the e-versions of some books for more than they cost when you buy the regular book. It’s ridiculous to me. I’d rather pay 9-15 bucks for a tangible book than a file that didn’t take much to create in the first place.
My Kindle also became my buddy when my beloved laptop passed away a few months ago. I did everything on it (it was the Kindle Fire, so it was basically like a tablet or iPad), slept next to it and put some apps on it that I had to download from other sources.
I know what you mean though. I’ll always like the smell of a book, the feel of the pages, and the feeling of going to a library or book store.
By the way… what do you recommend? I haven’t read a book in so long and there are so many choices that I just want someone to say “READ THIS!” so I don’t have to choose, hah.
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I love my Kindle, but I also love going to the New Book Shelf in my local library and picking out something to read. The covers entice me to pick them up, and then I read a few pages. I love the feel of the books and even the weight of them. I love being able to easily go back to a previous page to review something, or even to peek ahead a bit when things move slowly. I have a lot of unread books on my Kindle, and I will just save them for a trip when I can’t lug the books.
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