Paper or Plastic?

When I was going through a test run of packing this weekend I realized how heavy and big books are.  I then remembered that Judy suggested I look into the Kindle or an e-reader.  I did and, in my eyes, there are just too many problems.

First, the Kindle is the most popular, but it is only able to read books that you buy on the Amazon site.  Why is this bad?  Let’s say you have a local library that provides e-books online that you can download and checkout.  Sweet!  But, not so fast.  Libraries do not use the proprietary Amazon format so the library books will not work with the Kindle.  Boo!

Are there other e-readers?  There sure are, but they all have flaws that I am not willing to deal with.  Maybe it is because there is a limited amount of books that are available electronically at this time.  Maybe I have just become too frugal after a couple years of living in poverty and so paying $10 for a book seems too outrageous.  Maybe it is because there is no great way to buy or share ‘used’ e-books, which is how I primarily get books now.  Maybe I am worried that the internet connection in Georgia is going to be slow and, therefore, cost a lot of money in a cafe due to it taking forever to download a book. Maybe I think spending $150 for a product that basically just shows text on a screen seems a bit outrageous.

Maybe I learned that other people that are going to Georgia are going to ship books and we are going to start a book club.  Yeah, that pretty much settled the whole e-reader consideration right there.  Thank goodness!