The Magic of the e-reader

Does the humble book make a grand return?

Recently, I picked up a new Kindle for around 140 USD.

I wanted to try out more books and reinvigorate the feeling I had as a child reading books, oh the joy!

Over the years, the internet has overtaken books for me as a form of both entertainment and intellectual engagement, but I wanted it back.

But what makes e-readers special?

In my personal opinion, e-readers just give you more freedom as a reader to explore new books. For example, I would have never known a book like “Overstory” or “Life is short, and so is this book” from just looking in an ordinary library.

But what draws me the most to e-readers, is the ability and flexibility to take an entire library of books in such a thin and adaptable form factor. With something like a Kindle, the normal book simply cannot compete with such a thin and adaptable reading experience. The e-ink screen adds the original paper-like feel of real books and reduces battery life.

Plus, you get to store much more books on an e-reader!

The Kindle I got also works surprisingly well as a PDF reader, for those pesky manuals which hurt your eyes on the computer screen when you read them!

Is it worth it?

Absolutely, 140 USD might seem like much but what you get is a beautifully crafted store, software, and reading device that takes everything you love about books and the flexibility of a computer screen and condenses it into such a great form factor.

Mine also came with 3 months of Kindle-Unlimited, which was quite a nice to have feature as it includes much of the classic literature I wanted to read for completely free.

The Kindle, and its ever-improving software, not only provides a great reading experience, but it also enhances it by letting you search dictionaries and adjust font size.

Kindle Unlimited as well, can get you interested in more books and in return, get you to read more.

To sum it up

The Kindle, and e-readers in general, is a great platform. I absolutely love it, one could even say it gives the humble book a touch more magic. I recommend my setup to anyone who wants to read some more alternative and classic literature without jumping into an expensive mess of paperbacks on shelves.

The Kindle gives you the freedom to move around with an entire library.

Just like the iPod famously advertised with the “1000 songs in your pocket”, the Kindle takes hundreds of books and puts them in its little internal storage allowing you to carry all of them at once everywhere. The new ones are even water-resistant, so you have even less worry about getting it wet!

A magical reincarnation of the simple book, that's the e-reader.