A Kindle for Christmas

Buying Christmas presents is really easy sometimes, but other time’s one just needs inspiration!

Well, in my books there is one great present to buy this year and it’s a Kindle! I have just held – for the first time in my life – a Kindle 9.7”, and it is amazing. Unfortunately I can’t justify buying one of these at the moment as I have a perfectly good 6 inch kindle. (But if any of my friends are reading this and want to get me something special, you know what to get! Or Santa, if you are online, I have been very good and would love one.)

Back to the Kindle review.

There is one main reason why I think a kindle makes the perfect present; many people don’t want to buy one. Its not that they don’t want one, but until you have one you simple don’t realise how convenient they are and you wonder why you wouldn’t just stick with books. After all a book feels great, they have a smell to them and a cover with a texture; why would you want to loose all that for an electronic reader. I certainly didn’t. But now I couldn’t imagine life without one.

I still love to go into book shops during my lunch hour and browse through all the best sellers and find out what is just published. Often, after something has caught my imagination I will log onto amazon and buy it for Kindle. I have somehow managed to totally fall in love with my Kindle, without any effect on my relationship with book shops – a perfect combination.

I was also a bit anti-Kindle as I couldn’t imagine anything stranger that not having books at home, but I still have books at home. I would rarely read a paperback twice, so I often used to pass them to friends, so these were not books which were in my apartment. The books which ornament my walls are special books – they are signed by the author, or by friends, and having a Kindle has made me appreciate these more.

If I have read a really good book and then I see an author signing for it or another one of his books, I will still go alone and get one. I also still get given books; here is a funny story for you. I had just got my kindle and was boring everyone in the office senseless about how wonderful it was. I then read an amazing book (The Red Tent), I proceeded to talk about it unendingly and my colleagues continually joked about the fact that they would have been able to read the book if I bought a ‘real’ copy rather than a Kindle one. To shut them up I went to the book shop and bought one and lent it to the girl at the desk next to me. I never expected to see the book again, but I had the idea that it had been passed around and read by a few people. About 4 months later, I got to work to find a present on my desk. They had all signed the front page, and written reviews of the book on the inside of the front and back cover. They had also written on the title page inside the book:
‘Thanks to the Kindle obsession of our colleague we have all had the chance to read an amazing story. Thank you Kindle for keeping books in our every day conversation.’

So that just proves that Kindle isn’t going to kill the book, it is a perfect way to read more and to keep copies of books which have a real and personal meaning.

I can guarantee you that if you buy someone a Kindle this Christmas that they will fall in love with is; it is the perfect Christmas gift.

I actually do not have the ‘3g’ one – and I have never needed it. Getting wifi these days is pretty easy, so unless you are going to be in weird and wonderful places you probably won’t need this.

Here is a link for the one I have: Kindle, Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Pearl Display

And his is the link for the one I want: Kindle DX, Free 3G, 3G Works Globally, Graphite, 9.7″ Display with New E Ink Pearl Technology