I’m giddy. I just received my eBookwise, my very first e-book reader. I bought it a few days ago because H.E. gave me the money to do so, and after many months of thinking about it, I finally said, “Just do it.”

I mean, why not? I’ve been working in e-publishing for only four years. I might as well try reading some of the books I cover on an actual e-book reader, right? What a novel idea!

It being in my hands today is nice timing. Ann just posted a handy list that introduces me to many, many books that have been on my To Read list, and all of them are FREE.

I just downloaded The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, because I’d just finished reading a paperback version of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes today, and there the downloaded volume is, as I write this, on my little eBookwise’s bookshelf with some Burroughs, Poe, and Wells classics that came with the reader.

Few people can understand how big a step this is for me, the woman still on her very first cell phone, and even fewer people can imagine how important this all is to me. I grew up with ratty, often used library cards. I made frequent use of UBS’s—Used Book Stores. I traded books with friends. I bought more books than I could afford, and then I bought some more. This was my childhood, my teen years, my college years. Books came and went on my shelves. I grew nearsighted from all the reading, and I loved, loved, loved every book, every page, every musty, dusty smell of each cover, every tiny sharp crack of each spine.

And then I had to work for a living … and move from place to place.

Let me tell you, lugging all those books around in boxes isn’t fun. I’ve ripped three pairs of jeans in the four times I’ve had to move, and I blame the books. Books are heavy. Dead weight. Sheets and sheets of paper full of words. They’re great when you read them. They suck when you move them. The difference became even more pronounced when the number of books I read each year declined … and declined some more. With e-mail and magazines, with great films and TV shows, I have less and less time for books.

So I’m pickier now. I’ve taken up banned books and other classics, which makes physical paper-paged books seem even more silly for me to have. I’m now reading books that are so old that they are in the public domain, and here I am buying them when they’re free everywhere on the net? What madness!

And of course I get free e-books from my publishers all the time—I get copies of the books I cover, and here I sit, reading them on my computer when I’ve already spent all day on the computer working on covers. Again, what madness!

So I took the plunge and got myself a reader. Something to take into the other room for cooler reading of the free e-books that I get in my work. Something to keep me from buying used paperback copies of classics when I can get them free on the net. Something that I can carry around in one hand when I want to move 200 books from one place to another.

I can see me now, on a plane with H.E. on our way to Maryland. The cabin is dark because we’re taking the red-eye, and I can’t sleep. I whip out my e-book reader, full of 200 books and at least 15 hours of battery power, and without even having to turn on the cabin light, I read to pass the time and feel at peace that I haven’t killed any trees.

Yes, I know. Welcome to the 21st Century.

I don’t know why I’m always late.

Share this post: