Kindkle Review

I have to admit, when a dear friend gave me a Kindle as a birthday gift I wanted to smash the thing over her head. Deciding not to ruin a friendship -or risk a felony assault charge- I instead stowed my new Kindle away in a drawer. Yes, a junk drawer.

The damn thing is out to destroy books, and bookstores, too, I thought, and my owning one somehow makes me an accomplice. I saw the Kindle as a fell omen, an albatross hovering over The Open Door,  a locally owned independent bookstore.

Besides, how could this device ever replace the tactile experience of holding and reading an actual book? There aren't even any pages to turn, for chrissakes. No way this glorified calculator will ever match the character of a well-worn, dog-eared book.

Then it happened.

The friggin flu.

Five delirious days spent shuffling between bed and couch, hacking and wheezing, and longing for something to read. Whether it was the fever or the warm brandy -and I'll never know which- I got it in my head to read King's Under the Dome. Fishing the cursed e-reader out of the junk drawer, I held it in my hand as an innocent might hold a sin, straining to ignore the guilt of what I was about to do.

Thankfully, the deed proved fast. The whole book,  1000+ pages, downloaded in less than a minute. Better yet, Under the Dome only cost me $9.99 -half  the hardcover price.

Huh.

Okay, so maybe the Kindle isn't the spawn of an evil Hell-lord, the reincarnation of Justin Timberlake. What's that, Timberlake's not dead? He is to me, my friends, he is to me.

I mean, the Kindle does look innocent enough. And it is about the same size as a book. Easy to read and hold. Adjustable text sizes. Long battery life. Mind you, this is only the $79 dollar version of the Kindle. It's progressively more expensive brethren have even more features.

But what about The Open Door? Well, it's still there, though they've taken to selling small gifts as well, things like candles and local pottery. They've also outmaneuvered the big guys by putting a spotlight on local authors and books that focus on the region.

But I don't know. I don't know if The Open Door will still be here, or anywhere, in ten years.

But I do know that I no longer see the Kindle as a destroyer of books. In fact, I see it as a kind of savior. Book, bookstore and library all in one. And all in the palm of my hand.

Man, am I glad I didn't smash the thing.