To Kindle or not to Kindle
Reading time: 9 minutes
Day 7/30.
Whether you’ve known me for a long while or we connected recently, there is one thing very evident about me as a person - I love to read 📚. You will probably get a glimpse of what I am reading on my instagram stories, or our conversation will steer towards books at one point of time or the other. I truly think that reading has many advantages, including but not limited to developing better conversational skills, increased imagination🦢, you can learn from other people’s experiences and mistakes if you’re into memoirs and biographies, build a new skill-set with all the self-help books out there - the list is endless. I am not one of those people who can say I was always a reader, I have been reading ever since I was a 3, I have not. I didn’t pick up a book outside of my school’s curriculum until my first cousin gifted me an Enid Blyton on my 11th birthday. Even after that, I wasn’t fully mesmerized until I was around 15 when all hell broke loose after I read Princess Diaries 1 (Hello PIC, I hope you’re reading this). I was obsessed with the series, and with that, I got obsessed with reading. Most of it was fiction at the time, lots of young adult novels. There was no amazon at the time in India (I know, what world was that? 🙄), and there was a tiny book store near my house that I would go to every weekend and buy a new book.
With time, my infatuation with fiction decreased and I started reading a lot of biographies and books that would teach me something. Then came the books about habits, lots of human psychology, history of India - I was pursuing my undergraduate degree by this time. I still remember always having a few books to read in my dorm room and then switching them up every time I went home. By now Flipkart and Amazon Books were fully active as well, so that made “collecting books” much easier for a hoarder like me. With amazon, came this apparently amazing new device called the Kindle Paperwhite which promised to give the same experience as that of reading a paperback, but digitally. I didn’t buy it (the device or the concept). I loved buying a book, waiting for it to get delivered, devouring it and feeling accomplished. In fact, I was gifted the Kindle sometime in 2014 as a prize for one of the competitions that I had entered but I couldn’t bring myself to like it. I didn’t want to pay for a book I couldn’t see on my shelf, I hated how black & white it was and I didn’t get the “experience” of reading from a book. Reading didn’t feel like reading, period. Years passed, I moved to Hong Kong for my higher studies, kept buying books and didn't come back home as much. As a result, there was a mini-library in Hong Kong as well which moved with me to the US when I did. I kid you not, I made a trip from Hong Kong to Seattle with a 50lb suitcase full of books and still had more which I didn’t pack.
It is safe to say I love reading as an entire experience 😇. The process of reading the book is a small part of that experience and I was not ready to let go of it. Getting a kindle didn’t ever again cross my mind - until I started my internship at Microsoft. I live close to Downtown Seattle and my office was in Bellevue, so the commute was close to 45 minutes during the rush hour. I tried listening to podcasts, meditating on headspace, talking to friends and family, mindlessly scrolling on Instagram - but I didn’t like passing that time with any thing other than by reading a book. It calmed me down before work in the morning and helped me wind down in the evening after work. However, there was a problem, a few problems in fact :
Carrying a book during a commute as a software engineer is painful, there’s already the laptop and charger and other things as needed; a book is extra burden especially if its a 500-page book or even worse, a hardcover.
The days I took public transport, I wasn’t sure if I’d get a seat on the bus. That means if I am going to be standing, I definitely don’t want that extra weight on my back because I can’t read comfortably when I am standing (I tried).
I didn’t like reading the same book in the morning and evening - I wanted something motivational in the morning to get me ready for the day and something lighter for my way back. There was no way I was commuting with 2 books, of course.
My husband, tired of all my rants about the commute (which he could do nothing about), decided to make it at least feel better by surprising me with - no guesses there - A Kindle (yes, he’s a keeper I know ♥️ I am linking the one I have). I was excited about the fact that I got a surprise, not so excited about the gift itself to be honest. However, it was worth a try. And believe me you, I am a changed person. Here are the things I love about my new Kindle in no order or preference other than the fact that it does feel like I am read a printed book:
It is convenient and easy to carry 🧳
It is light! Lighter than the least wordy paperbacks I own. That makes it not only easy to carry in my bag pack, but also a small tote bag, even a large sling bag. I can literally carry it wherever I go - I don’t have to think twice about increased load. It doesn’t fit in my pocket like my phone does but it might just be lighter than my iPhone as well. So I am not too worried about carrying it with me to the lake and having myself a good read.
I can read multiple books at the same time 📚
Over the last few months, I have realized that some books are too heavy for me to read in one go, either because they have too much information that I need to process or they’re just too emotionally taxing. Because I am able to have multiple books in my hand at the same time, switching is much easier even when I am out and about. I don’t have to carry multiple books with me anywhere, just this one little palm-top device.
You don’t know you want one-hand-reading in your life until you try it 🤲🏻
This is a game-changer! You are not going to understand it until you experience it - but I will try my best to explain. I don’t have to worry about holding the book from both the ends to be able to read near the spine. I also don’t have to worry about pulling the pages too much or too little. The next & previous buttons are placed at the best ergonomic position for single-hand reading - while sitting, laying down, walking, reading while sipping my coffee from the other hand.. Oh and, you can flip and read it from your less dominant hand too. i.e. it is great for both left- and right-handedness.
It is sustainable 🏜
I have been trying to do whatever little I can including recycling, taking the public transport, trying to be a vegetarian - climate change is real, folks! Not contributing towards buying another source of paper is a step in the right direction as well. I know people who have been using kindles for 7+ years so I can comfortably say that the average carbon footprint of manufacturing a kindle and using it should be better than indulging in 100s of books.
It is so much easier to read before bedtime 🛌
I love reading before I sleep. I feel like it calms me down and I like to stay away from social media for a couple of hours before I go to bed (doesn’t always happen but I try). However, I share a bed with my dear husband and so having the bedside lamp on was a problem more times than one. Now with the kindle, I can tune the brightness high enough for me to read comfortably, low enough so it doesn’t bother him trying to sleep and I no longer have to worry about getting up from the bed to switch anything off once I am done for the day. Win Win Win!
I can finally highlight things I want to remember 📝
I can’t deal with any markings on a paper book. No pencil, no highlighters, no pens. I hate it even if a small part of a single page gets folded. It was fine till the time I was reading mostly fiction, but that soon started to be a problem when I was reading books I wanted to archive words from. I couldn’t bring myself to mark anything, and I didn’t always have a notebook around me to write in. I tried logging things in the notes app on my phone but I wasn’t always meticulous about it. But now, I can highlight to whatever extent my heart desires. I don’t feel guilty, it does not hurt my eyes, and Kindle keeps a separate record of all your highlights so you don’t have to go looking for them in a book; all in one place! I absolutely love this!
Automatic connection with Good Reads 📖
This is a little less significant, but since I am penning down everything I love about this new device, I might as well document this too. I like keeping a track of everything that I am reading on Good Reads. It was always a struggle to be consistent when reading paper books and I would go online a couple of times a year to update my profile. With a kindle, I am able to link my kindle to my Goodreads account & everything gets updated automatically : when I start a new book, progress I am making and it even asks for a rating when I am done (followed by great recommendations of what I should read next.) How brilliant is that?
I think I will still buy that paperback once in a while, but now I know that I don’t “need” to. If you are anything like I was before I got the kindle, trust me and give it a try! In the worst case, you can return in within 30-days (one of the many perks of Amazon!). Another perk of owning this device during the quarantine season is that I can get access to my next book as soon as I click “Buy Now” on the website - I don’t have to worry about delays in shipment or feel guilty about making the delivery industry move things around just so I can carry on with my hobby.
Thanks so much for reading this far if you did! I am currently reading “Gene” by Siddarth Mukerjee. Tell me in the comments below what you’re reading currently!
