Kindle: One handed reading
The absolutely best thing about the Kindle is that it makes one handed reading extremely comfortable. Okay, don’t look at me like that! I don’t mean anything risqué, though that’s certainly a possibility, especially when reading — oh, for example — Rose’s naughty, page-turning Regency romance In for a Penny.
Read more deeply
I love books. I’m not going to give up real books made of actual trees, but the Kindle is so light, so easy to balance, and so effortless that is actually promotes a deeper reading trance. When reading real books, we sometimes have to fuss with stiff bindings, books that are too big, too small, or too heavy for comfortable reading. I never really knew it mattered until I got my Kindle.
Weight matters
A friend of mine recently biked from Croatia to Istanbul. She’s a passionate reader but didn’t want to haul a bunch of heavy books on her bike, so she got herself a Kindle. Instead of a big stack of heavy books she was able to carry all the reading she needed in just 8.5 ounces.
But isn’t the screen weird?
No, it really isn’t. It looks and reads just like paper with little glare. The page display actually takes no power to maintain when it’s static, so the battery seems to last forever. I’ve been reading on it for three weeks and I’m still on my first charge.
When I first started using the Kindle, I was a bit distracted by the dark flash that happens on the page turn. The flash happens because the display needs to go dark to refresh, but it only took about 10 page turns before I unconsciously learned to ignore the flash. I actually don’t notice it now.
The future we dreamed of!
I was using my wonderful iPod Touch to read PDFs of crazy old magazines, but now I’m reading them on the Kindle because the screen is larger and optimized for reading. I love the experience of reading a magazine from 1800 on a cutting edge gadget from 2010. This is the future we dreamed about as children. Rocket packs must be next!
Not just books from Amazon
Project Gutenburg offers nicely formatted Kindle versions for thousands of classics and public domain books. There are also Kindle versions of magazines such as Asimov’s. And Amazon recently announced they’re planning to allow people to lend Kindle books to friends, though the details on this are still unclear.
One handed is best
But in the end, it’s the one-handed reading that really makes the Kindle my favourite thing ever. When reading in bed on these cold winter nights it’s so delightful to turn pages with a little one-handed effortless click rather than having both arms out in the cold.
What you do with your other hand is up to you.
You have a limited amount of time, so why spend it reading about things that suck or are only kind of okay? Favorite thing EVER is not a review site. We're unrepentant fans, and this is the stuff we love. Hope you like gushing, because we're about to embarrass ourselves.
I’ve been saving my pennies to buy a Kindle since last December. Hopefully I’ll be able to buy mine in January…I mean, who doesn’t like one-handed reading?
It’s so worth it. You’ll love it!
First of all Rose’s book is DELIGHTFUL and secondly, I have an eBook and I love it. I love being able to haul around a bookcase in slim little chunk of electronics. Oh, technology! I am sure the kindle is very nice, too!
Strongly agree!
I didn’t think the handheld bookcase would be as compelling as it is, but I’m reading a massive hardcover right now, and I keep thinking how nice it would be to just have it in the pod.
I completely agree about the deeper reading trance state. My reader is a Sony E-reader, complete with one-handed reading features. The only thing I don’t even consider buying in e-format is poetry. For some reason I still need poetry on paper.
Clélie
Poetry is weird that way!
I’ve had a Sony 505 reader for over 2 years. On the subject of one handed reading, it’s very nice for eating. If I have a book and I’m trying to eat, it’s harder to stay on the right page. With an ebook reader, I just set it on the table, eat, read, and push the button to advance the page as necessary.
Yeah! The turn page button on the Sony is really in the perfect place for that.