A Year of Kindle

I’ve had my Kindle for exactly a year now. My experience so far: it’s really great! After a multi-year long lull where I didn’t do any reading (except for school and work), I’m now back into a rather steady reading pace.

A few highlights from 2011:

  • Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
  • Too Big to Fail, Andrew Ross Sorkin
  • The Big Short, Michael Lewis
  • Liar’s Poker, Michael Lewis
  • The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli (Project Gutenberg)
  • At the Mountains of Madness, Howard Phillips Lovecraft (Gutenberg)
  • The Call of Cthulhu, Howard Phillips Lovecraft (Gutenberg)
  • The Art of Money-Getting, Phineas Taylor Barnum (Gutenberg)
  • Anthem, Ayn Rand (Gutenberg)

It’s the 6” Kindle that I use the most, though I also have a 9.7”. The 6” is so small that I always take it in my backpack when I travel anywhere (which I find myself doing a lot). Compared with all other battery-powered devices I have, the battery life is phenomenal. Easily lasts a month, even with a decent amount of reading.

Of course, the Amazon store is great. Being able to get a new book practically anywhere you go, at a moment’s notice is sweet. For example, I got really bored on the bus in England this summer, so I got a new book straight off of Amazon then and there — no extra charge though I downloaded it over 3G internet in a foreign country.

But for all the greatness of the Amazon store, I must perhaps say that I appreciate the freely available books even more, especially those you get through Project Gutenberg. I’m slowly working my way through old classics like The Age of Reason and The Republic. I never managed to do that with paper books, simply because I didn’t bring the books along all the time. Now, when I have the inclination for some moral philosophy, I actually spend ten minutes or an hour reading further in, say, The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

I concede that there are many reasons why I wouldn’t want to buy a Kindle, but the fact that I read a lot more—and even enjoy the reading itself more—outweighs all those reasons for me.