When I visit Amazon.com, I have diligently ignored Kindle for months now. I don't want to have anything to do with it. No thank you. Just here for a real book. My psyche does better when I pretend that this electronic madness is not in existence. I don't even allow myself to show the anger and disappointment I feel when I am shopping on Amazon and it punks me by throwing up a super low price for a book, and then I find out it is the damn Kindle downloading fee. Just stay out of my literary path Kindle. I am not your type.
But Kindle won't stand for it -- hence Kindle II came out this week. What-everrrr! All of your supposed techy fabulousness is still lost on me Kindle. I'm looking the other way.
Don't get me wrong -- I am not a complete anti-techite. I went along with the cell phone thing. My little Toyota Corolla had to break down in one of the worst areas of downtown San Jose at 1 a.m. for me to get one, but I got on board eventually. I obviously do the computer thing too. I even learned a little web code magic last year -- so there! I have surprised myself with the mastery of other technological advances as well, but I don't mess with books; I don't want Kindle to mess with them either.
Kindle is trying to rob me -- us really -- of all the pleasure that comes with a book. It's 1500 selection storage capability would rob the gems on my bookshelves of new neighbors. The instant downloading makes anticipation a thing of the past - ewww! The disembodied robot voice it uses to read to you if you so desire, is going to drown out the ones I already hear. And if I wanted that, I would take the meds my doctor is always recommending.
I simply want a book! I want to bend back the binding of a new read, and dig in. I want to turn back pages for a reread on little bits I can't get enough of, or possibly read over too quickly the first time. And once in a while.....I want to skip ahead to the end and allow myself the dangerous indulgence of skimming a sentence or two off of the last page. It's my right! It's my book!
Books are my favorite form of nostalgia. Sometimes I just gaze at what sits on my shelves and my thoughts will drift to memories of each read. Sometimes I share my books. I have been given books from other people's collections and I treasure that added dimension of what they offer me.
As the great Jon Stewart once said, "books are comfortably low tech" and I love them for that. So suck it Kindle and you can pass that along to Kindle II as well! Thank you.
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