Me and my eBook Reader

Last Wednesday was my birthday -- smack in the middle of the week, not that it makes a whole lot of difference for me! The Man surprised me with a wonderful Ibsen play, Ghosts, then dinner at a nearby Aldwych 1 restaurant. It was a great night.

But the best bit was when we got home and he unveiled... a Sony eReader!

I've read so much about these darn things I could barely believe it was right there, in front of my eyes. The future of publishing. The end of publishing. The killer of books. And there it was, nestled in its purple leather case, staring unblinkingly up at me.

I shivered with trepidation. The I reached out, touched it, and...

I fell in love. The 100 free classic books! The ease of choosing a book I wanted and having it... within seconds! And the best bit of all: the fact that my lovely Kensington and Chelsea has a digital library with a wonderful selection of books to choose from! It's amazingly easy: you put in your library card number, select the book you want to download... and voila. You have a limited time to read the eBook before it reverts back to the library (I think; I haven't fully investigated the 'return' of library ebooks yet).

I'm not saying the eBook Reader will take the place of other books in my life. But it is certainly handy to carry around with you to use when you're in that 'I need something to read, now!' state. A little anecdote: last Monday night I was stuck in a Tube tunnel for about 30 minutes on the 'new and improved' Circle Line. I'd finished reading one book already. In my former world, I would have sat there and been forced to listen to the annoying bloke beside me braying about how he forgot to set two places for invited guests during his wedding reception (yes, really). But with my eBook Reader, I simply opened another book I had downloaded, and let him fade away into oblivion.

If only real life could be so easy...