Monday Musings: Reading Devices

Monday Musings is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just follow the weekly prompt. This week, it's "What devices –if any– do you read books on? Do you find it enjoyable, or still somewhat bothersome? Or: If you only read the print books, why haven’t you chosen to read on any devices?"

When I was sixteen, I begged my parents' for a Kindle 2 (It had just come out on the market, and was quite a chunk of change). That was all I wanted for my birthday and I spent months drooling over it on Amazon. Well, my birthday came and went and alas, I didn't get the Kindle from my parents for my birthday. All hope lost, I decided to grin and bear it (after all, I was a *super* cool sixteen year old)...and then, a few days after my birthday, my sister came up from university for the holiday weekend (my birthday lands right by Memorial Day) with a gift...my KINDLE 2!!! I was ecstatic. Somehow, she had gotten an amazing deal on it and I was thrilled. I soon became attached to the Kindle and was obsessed, I spent countless hours reading on the light, digital e-reader. 

Now, two years have passed, and I don't use my Kindle as often. I will sometimes use it to read free e-books, chick lit and other guilty-pleasure reading but in my mind, nothing beats the beautiful smell and feel of the printed page. Nothing compares to a new book or an old book or the feeling of flipping through the pages, the satisfaction of closing it when the reading is done. I like to write in my books, I like to read what other people have written in them before me. 

My Kindle is great from a traveling perspective, it's always nice to have the peace of mind of having thousands of books accessible at once. However, I don't really enjoy reading serious literature on the Kindle. I greatly prefer the printed book, where I can write in the margins and feel the heft of what I am reading. I can't get over reading on a screen, even though it isn't back-lit, it can bother my eyes at times. The harsh white around the screen that is carefully gray I find to be distracting and irritating. I feel that e-readers take a little something away from the reading experience. But, despite its downsides, the convenience of the Kindle, its portability and its subtle nature are lovely positives. 

In the end, I won't be giving up my Kindle anytime soon (it sure is convenient) but you will never, ever, EVER separate me from my printed books.