Come To The Dark Side... We Have eBooks

I got some money for my birthday and so had to make a decision about what I was going to put it towards. At the time I was thinking that perhaps I was going to need to invest in a new mp3 player as my Zen was feeling a little bit under the weather, but once I'd got that up and running again I decided to put investing in new music media devices on hold until something came along that was a bit more suitable (or my Zen totally gives up).

The other options then; clothes or DVDs. I tend to get most of my clothes from charity shops and I tend to just pick up what I fancy as I go along. Generally whenever I go near a charity shop, I'll look out for something I can take away with me. On occasions I've been charity shopping with the intention of buying a bunch of clothes but aside from needing some new jeans and a summer jacket there's nothing I can't wait for.

And DVDs, well, we've been buying DVDs from charity shops just recently (spent a small fortune the other week when I had my hospital appointment, but got some good DVDs out of it). We tend to buy Disney blu-rays and other films as places have them on offer, but there's none at the moment that we really want or need. Though having said that, I have just forked out for series 10 of Spooks so we can finish watching the series and file them away in our cupboard ready to watch Tales of the Unexpected.

So that left books. The problem is, we've only got one bookcase at the moment (Mr. Click is only allowed one shelf because all of my books take up the rest of the space). I'd like to get another one but that would cause a problem with where our Christmas tree would go in December so we've held off until we can get something which would suit better.

In the spare bedroom I have four boxes of books. I had a massive clear out when we moved almost a year ago and only brought about two boxes with me in total, so since then I've acquired quite a few more. There's also a bunch of books which are waiting to be sold or passed on to someone who will love them more than me. I regularly reshuffle my bookcase to make space for the books in the boxes waiting to be read, and to move the books that have been read recently back upstairs.

So I made a spur of the moment decision and decided to go for a Kindle. Now, when I say it's a spur of the moment decision, I've actually been weighing up the pros and cons of getting an eReader since some time around last November. A bunch of people at work got them for Christmas and starting singing their praises, I played with them and told myself I really didn't need one.

I mean, there's nothing quite like a book. The smell of a well loved book, the feel of the paper in your hands, the satisfying thunk when you toss an annoying book across the room (only kidding!) Plus, you can't browse a secondhand bookshop or charity shop and come away with a bunch of bargains on eBook, can you?

Plus I have so many books still to read, there's a teensy little part of me that argues that I should really work through that backlog first, but it's neverending, there's always new books coming out. And I do have a course starting in September which will give me extra books to read (required reading which isn't about linguistics, I'm a little bit excited).

I'd been determined to make use of the library, because who needs an eReader when you can read books for free (or 75p order fee) from the local library. However, it was a little disheartening to go searching for books which are fairly popular only to find that my council area doesn't recognise them or their authors. So I went back to charity shops and secondhand shops, hoping to find copies of the books I was wanting to read.

But then I kind of checked out the books available through Project Gutenberg. I've been trying to read more classics, and I've got a lovely copy of Dracula on my shelf to read which weighs about half a tonne and doesn't actually fit into my work bag... and I spotted it there... plus I realised that I have quite a few books which I might want to pass on to someone else and rebuy in eBook format as and when they're available to save us a little bit of space.

Obviously, I won't be getting rid of all of my books. And it won't be the end of buying books. But it'll be so much more practical for work, for travelling, for taking up space on the bookshelf and bedside table.

Sadly all of the accessories I bought have been arriving this week, but I'm still waiting for my new toy. It should arrive today, but I'm off to Glasgow so won't get a chance to play with it right away. At least it's given me time to finish my proper book-book that I'm reading (Seabiscuit for those who are curious), so I can be all ready for getting on with Dracula once it's arrived.