This is how much I love my Kindle!

A while ago, I wrote a review of the Amazon Kindle Keyboard, which I received from BzzAgent.  My initial review mainly dealt with setting up the Kindle and using it for PDFs.  Now that I've had my Kindle for a few months, I've branched out to use it for many more purposes, and discovered some fun features that I'd like to talk about, too.

The best thing that the Kindle has done for me is allow me to read more often.  It's so light and slim that I just carry it around in my purse.  Whenever I have even a few minutes of down time, I pull out my Kindle and read a few pages or a chapter of the book I'm reading.  Because the Kindle automatically remembers the last page I read, there's no need for me to worry about remembering page numbers or finding something to use as a bookmark.  During my first three and a half years of college, I rarely read books for fun during the semesters- maybe one book a year, if that.  It was disappointing, because I love to read, but I just couldn't justify carrying around a heavy novel when I was already lugging notebooks and textbooks.  It wasn't worth the extra weight when I wasn't even sure if I would have time to read during the day.  I am so excited to be able to read more for fun now, and it is all because the Kindle is so easy to carry with me all day!

I also love that my local library (at home, not at school) has a fantastic program that allows you to check out Kindle books.  Though the lending period is shorter than for print books (two weeks instead of three), I have been able to find the majority of books I want to read using this system.  Even new releases are available for the Kindle, and overall there is less of a wait list for the e-books than print books!  This discovery has made having a Kindle simply fantastic!

On top of that, as many of my followers know, I review books on this blog.  Some of the books I receive are e-galleys, which I previously had to read on my computer using Adobe Digital Editions.  While the program itself is very useful, it hurts my eyes to read from a computer screen for too long.  So, it was taking me forever to finish books that I received in this format.  Now that I have a Kindle, I can upload my e-galleys to it, and read them much more quickly and in a way that is much easier on my eyes.

If I want to listen to a book instead of reading it, Kindle has a text-to-speech feature.  The voice is computerized, and therefore does not always catch nuances in pronunciation that a human would.  However, I have used this feature a few times and it is still nice to have when I want to continue with a story but either don't want to read (ie, if my eyes are tired), or if I can't (such as while driving).

These are just the reasons that I can think of off the top of my head for loving my Kindle.  (And for me, love is a strong word to use, since for the longest time I was convinced that I would hate using an e-reader.)  Sure, there are still reasons that I enjoy reading books in print, but I would not change having my Kindle for any reason.  If you're someone who loves reading but just doesn't want to carry around a heavy print book all the time, get a Kindle for yourself and rediscover your love of reading!

Do you have a Kindle, or another e-reader?  What's your favorite thing about it?