Chapter two of "The Kindle Conundrum"

Two years ago, I discussed Amazon Kindles at some length, and how I just wasn't ready for an e-book reader. I'm old school. I love the experience of reading a physical book, I love the ritual of the decision-making process in the store, looking at the cover art, gauging how many pages I have left, the little frisson of joy at turning the last page, seeing books on a shelf......you know, reading BOOKS.

I also said that the truth was I didn't have the circumstances in my life to justify the purchase. As much as I admired the Kindle, and eventually the competition from Barnes & Noble, it felt frivolous. Fast forward to this summer. I commute via public transportation close to three hours round trip each day. Working on my laptop isn't an option most of the time. To pass the time, I've been reading a lot. I'm averaging a book a week, even though a big chunk of that time (i.e. on the subway), holding a book and bracing myself to avoid getting thrown around while the train's moving isn't easily done, either. With a hardcover, it's impossible. Hardcovers are heavy, and tough to manage with one hand. Try holding a 500-page book and turning the page while holding on, with people packed in around you. Good luck. Even with a paperback it's aggravating.

I finally made the decision that I wanted...no, I needed a Kindle. Sadly, there are always too many bills in the way, even though the newest Kindles are now less than half the price compared to the spring of 2009. Maybe for my birthday (end of September) or Hannukah.

You can imagine my surprise and joy, then, when I got home from a weeklong business trip on Friday to find a brand-new third generation Kindle, the one with built-in 3G, waiting for me. And a leather cover in chocolate brown! Yes indeedy, I have the world's best wife. She had been planning this all along, that sneaky woman of mine.

So now I have a Kindle of my very own, and I'm not afraid to say I love it. As I freely admitted in 2009, it's a great little device. It does what only the very best technology can accomplish: it gets the hell out of the way and allows you to enjoy the content. What did I download first? You might be surprised. The first additions weren't from the New York Times' bestseller list, or even Amazon's top 100 books. Well, they might have been, a century or three ago.

• Collected Works of Charles Dickens
• The Complete Plays of William Shakespeare
• Collected Works of Mark Twain
• Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"
• "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll
• T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" 

There's a particularly cool feature available for Kindle readers....anything published before the 1920's is free, or nearly free (as in $1.99). Why? The copyrights have expired. Essentially, if it's in the public domain, there's no sense paying for it, so Amazon charges little to nothing for the very best literature. I'll eventually fill out my classics shelf with Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Victor Hugo and others, but in the meantime does it get any better than Dickens, Shakespeare, Carroll, Twain and Eliot?  The last two became special favorites of mine after a particular English class in high school....thank you, Dr. Teichgraeber. I still maintain that was the best C in my academic life. It was worth every frustrating exam.

Don't get me wrong, I'm going to have plenty of time for current stuff I have to pay actual money for, such as political treatises, Richard North Patterson, Dennis Lehane, Tom Clancy, Christopher Moore, Carl Hiassen and Dave Barry, plus my beloved biographies and historic novels (I loves me some Civil War books). There's going to be a nice mix over time. Best of all, though, the commute goes by faster now. I can read on the subway, I can hold a library's worth of books in one hand, and put them all in my luggage even though they weigh less than one paperback. Do I miss the sensation of turning pages? Yes I do, but less than I expected. I do miss the cover art. I wish the books were visible on my shelf at home when I finish with them. I'll need to find a new home for my boarding pass, now that it can't be tucked inside the back cover.

However, it's still reading. I'm still enjoying great (or even mindless, formulaic) literature. I have my idols with me wherever I want to lose myself in their words. I'll get over the loss of the tactile thrill of books.

I hope.