glibberish.

I received an Amazon Kindle as a Christmas present from my parents (thanks Dad, thanks Mom you’re the best!!), and after having finished my first book there – The Hobbit (a Tolkien book, but of course!) – I am now extremely enthusiastic about this device! It only took several pages for me to get used to it. Soon enough it just feels like reading a regular book. E-ink is such a revelation!

My favorite feature is the ability to adjust text size. My eyes nowadays easily get tired reading, but with a sufficiently large font it never happens anymore even after extended reading sessions. Just lovely. Another great feature is the text-to-speech. Sometimes I couldn’t put down the book but I’m off the train and have to rush to work. No problem – turn on text-to-speech and listen to where you left off! Turning it off brings you to the page where you stopped listening. And you know what, the text-to-speech voice isn’t bad at all.

To add to those, there’s also the ability to take notes and highlight text (I do this when I find quotable stuff). And of course – instant word definition lookup via built-in Merriam-Webster dictionary!

E-book prices from Amazon are reasonable, at least to me. Some would think otherwise, being that some e-books cost more than their paperback counterparts. Sure, but those paperback fonts are too small for my old eyes to read, alas. So if I buy books I buy trade paperbacks or hardcovers anyway – more expensive than the e-book editions.

But of course there’s a wealth of FREE e-books out there! The Amazon store has lots to begin with, popular ones now under public domain (e.g. Jane Austen, Dostoevsky, Arthur Conan Doyle). And I just found another DRM-free site: Manybooks. Heavennnnn

I have to say I have been spoiled by this device. It’s really hard for me to go back to dead-tree books, mostly due to the ease of reading Kindle text. Viva la e-book readers!

A toast to Prof. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien on his ___th birthday!