I absolutely love my home library.
I love READING, but I don't necessarily love OWNING books. I have never in my whole life owned enough bookshelves. I love that I can enjoy reading without physically collecting the books. Books in my Kindle don't get dusty, and they don't show wear and tear. Also, my enjoyment in owning the books doesn't balance out the environmental cost of cutting trees for books that'll be read once (maybe twice) in a lifetime.
When I read, I like holding a book and flipping the pages.
I don't -- especially at the beginning or the end of a 'specially fat book, when the book wants to close upon itself. If I put the book down, sometimes it closes, losing my place. I love that if I'm reading multiple books (say one with my class at school, one with my middle-school daughter for bedtime, and one for my own enjoyment), the Kindle "holds my place" in each book.
A Kindle is a book, its just condensed in format that makes it easier to carry your library with you.
We travel frequently, and I love that I can take literally hundreds of books along with me -- without adding weight or bulk to my suitcase!
I totally agree with you.
1. I can't afford a kindle gizmo.
2. If we lose power, as long as we have an oil lamp or candle, I can read.
3. I'm kinda old-fashioned and I like books too, as well as
keeping my budget tight and can't help but think
this whole electronic book thing is a racket:
you have to buy the books and I haven't seen any of these available at the library for free, like real books.
Not to mention, will the books be like the gaming systems where they are constantly being updated and old games
won't play on new players so you have to buy the new version of the same thing?
As long as I keep the wi-fi turned off, my Kindle's charge holds for just over two weeks. So unless we suffer a monumental power outage (perhaps after a blizzard here in North Carolina), I'm good.
No, book files are more like word processing files than video game files. To simplify, they don't have moving parts; thus, they're not going to become outdated. Furthermore, those files cannot be lost. If your Kindle is lost or destroyed, you still "have" all your books at Amazon.com -- you can buy a new Kindle, and one call to Customer Service will upload your entire library again.
Check out the Amazon.com library -- you'll find free books every day. I've had mine about a year and a half, and I have collected almost 200 free books. Some authors put their books up for free for a while (to get themselves into the best sellers category), others offer up one of their novels for free in hopes that you'll then pay for other books. The perception is that it's "just classics" like Dracula or Pride & Prejudice (though as an English teacher, I am attracted to those), but that's untrue: I've picked up all sorts of books for free. Right now
Outlander is available for free (too bad for me it's been one of my ultra-favorites for about three years, and I already own the whole series). At New Year's the free book area was full of weight-loss books and year-through-the-Bible type books.
In a real book, I know about where in the book it was based on how far in I was but don't see how that would be easy with a kindle or variation.
The Kindle has a bar across the bottom of the screen, which shows you that you're 10% (or whatever number) through the book. Yes, it's different from a paper book, but it doesn't take much getting used to -- it's still a visual cue.
Also, "a kindle gizmo"?
Why do you call it that?
While I cannot know the poster's intention, I do know that people sometimes make up foolish or silly names for things they wish to degrade.
I was spending thousands a year on books and felt so guilty if I didn't finish a book that I didn't like, it felt like I had wasted that money so I would finish the book even if I didn't like it. Reading had become a chore. Now bad books go back unfinished guilt free.
One of the benefits of the Kindle is that it allows you to read the first 1-2 chapters of a book BEFORE you purchase it. This could be a money-saver for a person with the habit you're describing.
Instant gratification. No more needing to even wait a day or two for
Amazon, or driving over to B&N or the library. See a book you want - you can be reading it in seconds.
This can be good or bad, depending upon how you look at it! Say you're on vacation, and you've just finished the first book in a series that you LOVE . . . you can have the next book in minutes. Or you can get that new gotta-have book at midnight on the night it becomes available. Or you can get it on the day you're stuck at home without a car.
The downside? It's so easy that you can spend more money than you intended.
The thing that swung me from the Nook to the Kindle is that the Kindle 3G does NOT need WiFi to operate its internet browser
Yes, I have purchased books on a train, in a car, in a dull meeting . . . all sorts of place where I don't have wi-fi. Having said that, I PREFER to buy from my computer rather than the Kindle itself. It's faster, and you can see the books in full color.
Other than that, I think the Nook would be a better choice for most readers with its expandable memory, somewhat larger collection, and ability to access library books as well as book-sharing, none of which really was enough to sway me away from the 3G/browser thing.
Clarification: My Kindle 2 holds 1500 books (some of the newer models have more than twice that). If I go over that number, I can "archive" some of them. This means they're "held for me" on Amazon.com, and I can pull them up again anytime I want -- so essentially the Kindle has unlimited memory.
People who are against e-readers haven't hit on the REAL problems with them -- probably because they're not the things you'd expect. And, to tell the truth, they're not problems so much as quirks. These are the things I don't like about my Kindle:
Although I have a couple versions of the Bible on my Kindle, I don't like to take it to church. It's not all that fast when you're trying to flip to this chapter and that verse. A paper Bible is faster. This is not a problem when you're reading along at your own pace at home -- just when you're listening to a sermon and the pastor expects you to be able to zip between Daniel and Revelations in a big hurry.
I don't like cookbooks in e-reader format. I want to see the whole recipe on one page -- preferably with a photograph next to it. And cookbooks are easier to sort in paper books.
I don't like books that're graphic-heavy on Kindle. For example, I just bought a book about square-foot gardening. I knew that it'd be full of diagrams and charts, which sometimes bump to the next page -- I knew that it'd be better in paper.
Some of my favorite books aren't yet available in e-format. I really want the Inkheart collection on my Kindle. I do have a bootleg version of the whole Harry Potter series, but it isn't as nice as the "real" e-books. The formating is lacking.
You'd probably loan a book you've finished to a friend, but you're not going to loan out your Kindle, and you can't easily pass around the files. Yes, Nook has the ability to do some sharing, but only with other Nook owners, who -- at this point -- are relatively few in number. It'll never be as easy to share e-books as it is to share paper books.
The biggest problem I've found is while I'm perfectly willing to leave a book lying by the pool or on the beach while I go for a swim, I can't do that with my Kindle.
Do you suppose this argument has been made at previous points in history?
Books? You'll never catch me reading them! Scrolls were good enough for my father, and I'll keep reading them!
Who's this Guttenburg with his moveable print? Why does he think that's better than engraving blocks of wood?
Some of what I do at work is "hurry up and wait" and I can't yank a paper book out and start reading it, but I can pull out a Kindle with a tad more professionalism. I also don't have to answer as to why I'm reading The Prince. 
