Confessions of a Kindle Convert – (And Loud Page Turner)

My new BFF

I’ve jumped on the Kindle bandwagon and my husband is a happy man.

I’ve always been a book person. Even as a child, my friend Lelia and I were the nerds in the lunchroom with our noses in a book, while the other kids were squishing Jell-O through their teeth and squirting chocolate milk through their noses.

Now I also write and publish books, and still can’t take even the shortest trip without carrying along several books. I have a fear of being bookless that borders on a phobia and totally identified with the story of a woman who left a child at the gate in the Orly Airport in Paris to run back and buy a book, coming within seconds of missing her flight.

Given its capacity for holding several books in one lightweight device, rather than the 87 pounds of books I generally drag along, the Kindle seems like it would have instantly been my best friend.

Yet I held out. Out of loyalty perhaps? Yes, plus a small dose of sheer laziness, mixed with a rather large helping of thriftiness. Why shell out hundreds of dollars when I get most of my books as the library for free?

My son received one for his high school graduation. He didn’t think he’d use it so I held onto it, where it sat for months in the corner of my office, while I’d sit for weeks on hold lists at the library waiting for books I wanted to read.

Then this past week we got offered a dream trip – accompanying some friends who are thinking of purchasing a yacht while they took it out on a “test drive.” Yeah, that’s a story for another day.

As usual I contemplated the amount of reading I would do, against the potential weight of hardbacks versus paperbacks, taking into account the time on the plane. This portion of my trip preparation involves quite complicated calculations, with the inevitable overpacking just in case one of the books is too chick-litty or has creepy, scary parts that keep me up at night.

So I turned to the Kindle and made the commitment. I took off the plastic sleeve, powered it up and registered it on my Amazon account. I checked my account at the Atlanta Public Library and after verifying that I was #22 in the holds queue for “How I Became a Famous Novelist” I found it at Amazon, clicked the button, and in less than 60 seconds had the book on my Kindle. How cool is that? I found a few books that are offered for free, and added those too just to be safe.

The Kindle was easy to use, light to carry and really a lot of fun. I quickly got used to reading the screen, where you can adjust the size of the font if you’d like, and never had to scramble around for a bookmark.

Oh, and what does all this have to do with my husband? Seems that I am a very loud page turner. This man, who will stand within spitting distance of the stage at outdoor concerts where the stack of 30-foot stack of amps puts out enough wattage to deafen small wildlife, has trouble with the way I flip pages in a book.

“Now you just click for a new page,” he said with a smile when he saw me using the Kindle.

If you want a smile, get yourself a Kindle. And if you want to laugh out loud read that book – “How I Became a Famous Novelist.” Funniest book I’ve read in years. And I don’t even have to return it to the library.