Kindle: "The best thing ever."

[Numinous]

I Finally got my Kindle 2 in March. After a month or so of fiddling about with both my K1 and K2, I decided to give the K1 to my 16 year old daughter. I loaded it with almost all of the Sookie Stackhouse books and 35 of the 36 or so Terry Pratchett books.

A day or so later, she comments in passing, "Dude, the Kindle is the best thing ever!" Now, she carries it with her everywhere she goes. To my shock, she disconnected it from my Amazon account and set up her own account. I believe she's bought the whole Twilight series.

The Kindle 1 is her first ebook reader. She has no problems with the user interface as she has no basis for comparison though she did say that it took her a few hours to get used to it. I expected to have to spend an hour or so explaining it to her, but that never happened. She's never read a manual in her life and she does very well with computers and video games.

I too believe that, "Dude, the Kindle is one of the best things ever," though I vastly prefer the K 2 to the K 1. However, I'm not telling my daughter that.

[weatherman]

Good story, that. Very smart of you to fill it up with the Sookie Stackhouse novels - I'm sure once she got reading them she didn't even notice that she was reading on a Kindle.

[sirbruce]

It *is* one of the best things ever!

[Sydney's Mom]

The Sookie Stackhouse novels is why I bought a kindle! I fell in love with True Blood, but didn't like waiting to find out what was going to happen (I like books, where I control the flow of content). Anyway, I went to check out the first book at the library - there was a huge waiting list. Four months after the series ended for the year, I still hadn't made it to the top of the waiting list. I bought my kindle 1, and read the first 6 books during Christmas vacation. I downloaded the 7th while waiting for a flight, where I was separated from my family in a middle seat. The kindle saved my life.

I didn't like the Amazon price on the 8th book, and bought it someplace else and learned here how to put it on my kindle. And I checked the most recent book out of the library and put it on my kindle.

I love the kindle 1, and have no desire for a kindle 2. I suppose the kindle 2 is better for reading without a cover, but I am so used to my nice Oberon cover, I have no desire to read without it!

The only problem with the kindle is that it has overtaken my life. I have quit knitting, quit sewing, quit every activity I did during baseball games and commuting, and just read, read, read. I know a lot of people hate Jeff Bezos, but I think he deserves a medal.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by Numinous

I Finally got my Kindle 2 in March. After a month or so of fiddling about with both my K1 and K2, I decided to give the K1 to my 16 year old daughter. I loaded it with almost all of the Sookie Stackhouse books and 35 of the 36 or so Terry Pratchett books.

A day or so later, she comments in passing, "Dude, the Kindle is the best thing ever!" Now, she carries it with her everywhere she goes. To my shock, she disconnected it from my Amazon account and set up her own account. I believe she's bought the whole Twilight series.

Out of the mouth of babes! The Twilight series is a decent-enough read for teens.

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

The Sookie Stackhouse novels is why I bought a kindle! I fell in love with True Blood, but didn't like waiting to find out what was going to happen (I like books, where I control the flow of content). Anyway, I went to check out the first book at the library - there was a huge waiting list. Four months after the series ended for the year, I still hadn't made it to the top of the waiting list. I bought my kindle 1, and read the first 6 books during Christmas vacation. I downloaded the 7th while waiting for a flight, where I was separated from my family in a middle seat. The kindle saved my life.

I didn't like the Amazon price on the 8th book, and bought it someplace else and learned here how to put it on my kindle. And I checked the most recent book out of the library and put it on my kindle.

I picked up the 8th book in the series from Amazon at the very low price of $3.95. I just happened to stumble across it at that price -- don't know if it was a mistake or an unannounced special -- so I've got it saved away until I catch up to it. I've read the first 3 in the series and want to purchase/read #4, but I'm having to catch up on reading some paper books that I've promised to friends.

Originally Posted by Numinous

I too believe that, "Dude, the Kindle is one of the best things ever," though I vastly prefer the K 2 to the K 1. However, I'm not telling my daughter that.

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

I love the kindle 1, and have no desire for a kindle 2. I suppose the kindle 2 is better for reading without a cover, but I am so used to my nice Oberon cover, I have no desire to read without it!

The only problem with the kindle is that it has overtaken my life. I have quit knitting, quit sewing, quit every activity I did during baseball games and commuting, and just read, read, read. I know a lot of people hate Jeff Bezos, but I think he deserves a medal.

I'm with Sydney's Mom here -- I can't see any reason to purchase a Kindle 2. I'm still using the supplied cover and find that the Kindle 1 is very comfortable in my hands when reading. Since I was such an avid reader before getting my Kindle and Sony readers, I haven't seen much change in the amount of time I spend reading. What has changed is that I've experienced a number of new-to-me authors, in particular authors who are publishing their own books or books coming from small publishing houses.

Congratulations for gifting your daughter with a Kindle. I'm planning on getting one to give my daughter for her 26th birthday. She was quite skeptical about readers until I bought a book that she was wanting to read but which she couldn't find in any bookstore and loaned her my Kindle. (One big advantage with electronic books is the ability to quickly locate the early books in a series!)

[angelad]

It is pretty sweet, but the best thing eva?

[Boston]

I own a Kindle 1 and still haven't seen anything compelling enough to personally warrant an upgrade.

I wish there were more purchases that I love as much a year later as I did when it first arrived.

[HarryT]

I'm sorry, but your daughter calls you "Dude"????

[Numinous]

angelad: ONE of the best things eva

Boston: I prefer the ergonomics of the K2, the faster page turns, the percentage read indicator, the 16 tone graphics and the 5-way toggle. There are a few things I miss from the K1 though, especially the SD card. AND, I'm still as enraptured with Kindle as I was a year and more ago when mine arrived.

My daughter has read all 9 of the Sookie books already . . . I'm still working on #7. She's impatient with me to finish so we can discuss them without her providing spoilers. we watch 'True Blood' together too and enjoy the differences between Alan Ball's vision and Charlaine Harris's. My daughter's a magnet school student, though she's a somewhat reluctant student where the English department is concerned. Sharing these books and the TV series with me is sharpening her critical skills in 'literature' painlessly. Better, I think, to have fun sharpening those skills than to have them forced down one's throat by reading books that, although it's good to have read them at some point, are of no interest to a 16 year old girl.

The educational possibilities of the Kindle never occurred to me when I gave it to her. Also, the additional means of connecting with her. Imagine my surprise.

Kindle: the best thing eva? E-readers, yeah, one of the best things ever and Kindle, possibly better than the rest for now.

[Numinous]

HarryT:

She calls her mother "Dude" too, sometimes. It's a basic teenage ejaculation. She's also a skateboarder.

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by Numinous

HarryT:

She calls her mother "Dude" too, sometimes. It's a basic teenage ejaculation. She's also a skateboarder.

Are you by chance British? Or a great reader of classic literature? I ask because of your use of "ejaculation" in a verbal, not venereal, sense -- not a common usage in the USA. As a lifelong reader of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, etc - it kind of jumped off the post at me.
Egad!

[Numinous]

Ok, Pooh, what else would one call a teenager's 'blurt'?

I lived in England for two years while going to film school. I lived in Australia for six (so I had to learn to spell colour and tyre both ways). I've been a "student of English" most of my life. I write sometimes. I was a communication studies major in college with side interests in anthropology and linguistics. So now you know a little about me .

Back on topic:
My daughter is more interested in the sciences and wants to become a CSI. She attended a summer program at a university outside D. C. last summer for that. She has very little interest, academically, in the liberal arts in spite of being an avid reader since the age of 10. I'm grateful for the existence of the Kindle because she's getting some education in that area without even knowing it .

[RickyMaveety]

I LOVE the K1!! It is one of the best things eva (err ..... ever)!!

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by Numinous

Ok, Pooh, what else would one call a teenager's 'blurt'?

I lived in England for two years while going to film school. I lived in Australia for six (so I had to learn to spell colour and tyre both ways). I've been a "student of English" most of my life. I write sometimes. I was a communication studies major in college with side interests in anthropology and linguistics. So now you know a little about me .

Back on topic:
My daughter is more interested in the sciences and wants to become a CSI. She attended a summer program at a university outside D. C. last summer for that. She has very little interest, academically, in the liberal arts in spite of being an avid reader since the age of 10. I'm grateful for the existence of the Kindle because she's getting some education in that area without even knowing it .

I KNEW you had to have British/Commonwealth language training in your past - how's that for a CSI deduction. It's an apt description for teenage talk (I won't go into the messy similes currently running through my head comparing the 2 usages - hehe) - but I remember a post long ago here severely lambasting a reader's choice of mysteries - Conan Doyle, Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie, etc. - on the basis of the outmoded overusage of such terms as "ejaculated" - apparently the mental image of Dr. Watson continuously ejaculating at Holmes was too much for the reviewer.

Anyways, I had a similar educational experience to that of your daughter - I went into the sciences academically which left little or no time in my curriculum to take literature courses - although I was then, and still am, a voracious reader. I would have killed for a Kindle, or eReader while I was a student - both to decrease the number of books I lugged around, and to increase the variety of what I read. Keep loading that Kindle for her! Give her an Amazon Gift Card on gift occasions!

[kevindorsey]

Originally Posted by Boston

I own a Kindle 1 and still haven't seen anything compelling enough to personally warrant an upgrade.

I wish there were more purchases that I love as much a year later as I did when it first arrived.

I'm with you buddy, I still haven't been tempted enough to ditch the K1. Still think its the best one to come out. I will wait for the DX conclusion before even thinking of a replacement.