Kindle: Furthering My Literacy

With the help of my new Kindle (compliments of my dad) and some relaxing free time during Thanksgiving break, I recently read:

• The Twelfth Imam by Joel Rosenberg - The writing is weak in a few places, but his ability to weave an engrossing story is alive and well. He's definitely got another great series started.
• Sense and Sensibility - I like the Emma Thompson movie better.
• A Christmas Carol - For some reason and for all the film and theater versions I've seen, this story is always framed in my mind through the lens of the Muppet adaptation. As I read I kept converting all the characters to their Muppet versions.
• Heart of Darkness - Man, that Conrad guy can write! Like Lord of the Flies, I'll keep revisiting this book because of the depth of story and the worlds created in my mind through the writing.
• Dracula - I just started this one and so far it's pretty entertaining.

I've decided to make my way through classic literature included on all those "Books Everyone Should Read" lists. I had the opportunities to read such classics in high school and college, but let's be honest, I never actually read those books in their entirety. I also figure this can only help my vocabulary and writing, plus most of the older classics are FREE Kindle books. A sidenote, if you get a Kindle you might want to hold off on buying the ESV Study Bible Kindle version. It's only $10 and definitely better than nothing, but in its current state it's pretty tedious to use. You're probably better off waiting until they come out with a more user-friendly version.

I would definitely recommend the Kindle to anyone who enjoys reading even a little. It's such an efficient way to read and store books (3,500 of them!), it's very easy to figure out, the battery lasts forever (I've read all the above and the battery hasn't even gone down to 50% yet), and at this point they're not that expensive. Granted mine was a gift, but this new version with wireless is only $139. I love that it's much less cumbersome than a book to hold and turn pages. And those skeptics who think reading from a screen will hurt their heads and/or eyes probably just haven't seen a Kindle and held it in their hands. It truly is like reading pages in a book - no glare, no backlight. There are also a bunch of features I haven't even used yet, including highlighting and note taking capabilities within the text. All in all it's definitely worth the investment!

"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." -Joseph Addison