Friday, July 24, 2009

7 Days of Kindle: Day 1


As an avid reader, geek and techie I couldn’t resist the offer to take the new Kindle 2, Amazon’s proprietary electronic book reader, for a seven-day spin. Having recently read the book, “Julie & Julia” – where author Julie Powell cooks every recipe from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and blogs about it for 365 days, I felt like a week’s worth of blogging was not only doable but sounded like fun. As actress Amy Adams says in the movie version of “Julie & Julia,” ‘I have thoughts!’ And anyone who knows me knows I’m not scared of sharing them.
On Thursday, the package from Amazon arrived and I felt like it was Christmas in July. Though one should not, normally, judge a book by its cover, I like the details. The whimsical phrase on the side of Kindle’s box “Once upon a time…” suggests this will not be any ordinary technical gizmo.

My goal for the next seven days is simple: do all my normal reading on the Kindle and see how it compares. My daily reading diet consists of two daily newspapers, a dozen blogs and an array of four or five books at various stages – in addition to our book club’s monthly selection. To maintain this information influx, I use a combination of laptop, BlackBerry and lug around a duffle bag just for reading material. The idea of swapping those 10-pounds for the sleek convenience of the Kindle, which weighs 10.2 ounces, is exhilarating.

I plug in the Kindle overnight to make sure it’s fully charged and can’t wait until day 2.

1 comment:

jen m said...

cannot wait to hear what you think. I have several friends that swear by them and was thinking about getting one.